Nine Crimes, Nine Kings: Judgement
by Tobi wants a cookie
Summary: The sequel to Nine Crimes, Nine Kings, Judgement follows Naruto as he attempts to take down a threat for greater than Madar ever could have been. A threat that will make him wounder who he is in his very core.
1. Men of Faith

Ladies and gentlemen, I am back! It is time for another season of Nine Crimes, Nine Kings. Now, before I even start writing this, you need to have read the previous fanfics that took place before this one for it to make any sense at all. If you have not read it yet, please read the original story first, which you can find by clicking on my profile, and enjoy! For those of you who have read the first part and are joining me now for number too, thanks so much for sticking with me. I subtitled this season/part Judgement, as it will deal with Naruto and the kings facing off against a threat far greater than Madara ever could've been, along with Naruto having to deal with some of morality of what he's doing. Now, I don't know how many chapters this is gonna be, or how long each chapter will be, I'm just gonna go with how long I feel it should be basically. As this is the introduction one, it'll be on the longer side. Okay, I'm starting to ramble at this point, so I'll try to get on with it. Just keep in mind, this will be taking place several months after the first part of the series. I promise, the opening won't be this long in the future. Please, sit back and enjoy, Nine Crime, Nine Kings: Judgement!

* * *

It was a strange gathering to be sure. People from all walks of life had joined together to in a celebration of life, love, and so much more. It was a wedding, the wedding of two police detectives Kakashi Hatake and Rin Nohara. Just six months after the death of the madman formerly known as Madara, Kakashi asked for Rin's hand in marriage. For many people, that may not seem like a long time, but they'd known each other long enough to know in just six months, that they were perfect for one another. The wedding had been planned in just two months, thanks to the help of one of Kakashi's closest friends, Naruto Uzumaki.

When Naruto, the head of the massive criminal organization The Nine Kings, had heard that his man on the inside was getting hitched, he instead on doing everything in his power to make perfect, even paying for as much as they'd let him. Of course that hadn't been easy, as Naruto and Kakashi weren't supposed to be seen together much, but they'd made it work. Yamato, the officer more than a little obsessed with Naruto, never got even a whiff that the King of Crime was so heavily involved. Which is why it had been such a shock when Naruto and some of the other kings had shown up for wedding at all.

Yamato didn't know who the kings were. Hell, almost no one did, but he knew that these were people involved with crime. That was exactly why he couldn't keep his mouth shut when he came up to give the happy couple his congratulations. Kakashi and Rin were sitting next to one another at the head table of the reception, just watching everyone eat their meals. Rin was in a beautiful white dress, Kakashi was in a nice suit, and wedding party was dressed nicely as well. Yamato was waiting in line with the rest of the well wishers, rather impatiently in fact. He was stuck behind none other than the loud mouth known as Mighty Guy.

"Yosh, I could not be happier for the two of you! I always knew that you would end up together," Guy screamed in his usually enthusiastic tone.

Kakashi would usually be upset at how loud he was, but frankly there was nothing that could ruin his mood on this day. He grabbed Rin by the waist and pulled her a little closer, "Yeah, I guess that the two of us should've seen it coming. Better late than never I guess. Thanks Guy."

Rin stood up and gave Guy a little hug, "Glad you could make it Guy, please enjoy the party. Maybe you'll find a girl of your own here."

"That would be youthful indeed!" Guy said, happily returning the hug. Once their little moment was done, Guy turned and walked away, finally letting Yamato get up and speak with the bride and groom.

He went up to them with a smile on his face, but his question still in the back of his mind, "Hey Kakashi, Rin, I couldn't be more happy for you guys."

Kakashi stuck out his hand and Yamato shook it briefly, a little show of respect between the two of them, "Well thank you, we couldn't be happier ourselves."

Yamato knew better than to ask the question burning in his mind just yet, so he decided to ask something a little more appropriate, "You know something, you guys never did tell me how he popped the question."

"Oh, that? Well there's not too much of a story there. Really it just kind of happened," Rin said, lying to him a little bit as there were certain details that needed to left out, "We were having dinner, he got down on one knee, gave me this super sweet speech, and here we are."

Kakashi chuckled at the little things she'd left out. What she'd said was almost the truth...almost.

_Flashback_

_The proposal had happened at one of the frequent meetings of Nine King's. While everyone had been sitting around the table, Fu cuddled with Naruto, Bee doing his rapping, Gaara talking with his siblings, Kakashi had been sweating bullets. He'd decided a week ago that it was time for him to propose to his lover, even though they'd only been dating for six months. It just felt so right when he was with her and he'd been away from her for so long with the whole Naruto thing, he wanted to make sure that he was never apart from her again._

_Naruto had been watching his nervousness with amusement, as Kakashi had told him before hand that this was night he was going to finally ask Rin the big question. He would've loved to have gone over and teased Kakashi a little bit, but Rin was right next to him, so Naruto knew better. Instead, he decided to help Kakashi about a little bit._

"_Hey guys, I think that should just about do it for now. I'm beat, so how about we all call it a night and go home, huh?" Naruto asked, figuring the kings would have no issue with it and Kakashi would be grateful to be getting the show on the road._

_None of them seemed to be bothered by the idea, even Yugito seemed fairly pleased, "Sounds good to me, I could a use a good rest right about now. I'll see all of you around and, for the love of god, stay out of trouble."_

_Everyone blew off Yugito's not so playful jab and finished saying goodbye to one another, other than Naruto and Fu of course. Naruto knew what was coming soon and he'd told his girlfriend before hand to stick around and watch. It had puzzled Fu, but hey, Naruto wouldn't make her stick around for nothing. _

_The two of them were sitting next to each other at the moment, much like the way Kakashi and Rin were sitting next to one another at the wedding in the current moment. Fu could see how nervous Kakashi, prompting much curiosity from the green haired woman. She leaned over to Naruto and whispered, "What's got him thinking so hard?"_

"_Just trying to remember his lines I guess," Naruto replied, chuckling to himself._

_That just managed to confuse her even more, "What lines? What the hell are you talking about?"_

_Naruto always loved an inside joke, "Just give it a second, you'll see."_

_As if on cue, that's right when Kakashi started to walk towards Rin while fumbling with something in his pocket. Rin had been around Kakashi long enough to tell when something was on his mind, so she began speaking to him before he even got close, "Um, Kakashi, is their some kind of reason you look like about to pass out, or what?" _

_Kakashi knew he was gonna have to do this right, and he was only gonna get one shot at it, "Well, this would be a pretty bad time for me to pass out. I sort had something important to talk to you about."_

_Now that made Rin a little nervous, as those kind of words often meant something was wrong, "Oh no, do we have some kind of problem?"_

"_Well actually, it's the exact opposite," Kakashi said pulling a small box from his pocket, "You decided to ignore me for all those years, and that absolutely sucked, and I never want to have to live like that again."_

_Rin was agreement on that one, although she wasn't sure where Kakashi was going with this, "I know, it's hard to believe we blocked each other out for so long."_

_Kakashi tried to remember everything that he was going to say, "It was my fault though, I did something horrible and I don't blame you for getting as angry with me as you did. The fact that you found a way to forgive me proves what an amazing person you are. You're the kind of person that I want by my side for the rest of my life."_

_Rin finally noticed the box in his hand, "Oh my god...Kakashi…"_

_Kakashi took a deep breath and got down on one knee opening the box to reveal the ring inside, "Rin, will you,"_

"_Yes! Yes! YES!" Rin screamed, before Kakashi could even finish. She tackled him to the ground and pulled down his mask, kissing him feverishly._

_Fu was almost in tears, "Oh, that is so sweet!"_

_Naruto was having the same kind of thoughts, "Yeah, it's beautiful little moment alright."_

"_I love you Rin," Kakashi said through the kisses._

"_I love you too," Rin replied quickly._

_With that, Naruto and Fu smiled and watched theme enjoy the moment. At least until Kurama, Naruto's lovable little fox who'd come along with, thought that they were playing and decided to get in and play too. Still an adorable moment, actually. _

_Flashback End_

Rin giggled at the memory, "Nothing major that you need to know Yamato."

Yamato could see that Naruto was right behind him, so he leaned down and whispered the next thing that he had to say, "Care to tell me why the hell that son of a bitch got an invite to the wedding?"

Kakashi had known Yamato long enough to know that he was gonna bring that up sooner or later, "Well, him and his buddies donates a lot of money to the department. Lots of the higher ups felt it would be a good way to keep up appearances with him, you know?"

Yamato couldn't help but feel that a whole bunch of bullshit, "Oh gee, isn't that great plan. Let's invite a fucking murders to wedding with cops!"

Rin figured it couldn't hurt to try and defend Naruto a little bit, the guy was her friend after all, "To be fair, none of them have even come close to being convicted of anything. I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt."

"Well, that's very kind of you," Yamato admitted, "But I've just gotten to cynical for that. Have fun on your honeymoon you two. When do you guys leave, in a couple days or something?"

Kakashi was planning on enjoying the honeymoon as much as he possibly could, "Yeah, I've got a couple of things to take care of before we go. Thanks Yamato, have a good one."

Yamato gave one last nod and then walked away, letting Naruto walk up with Fu by his side, "Hello Detective Hatake, Detective Nohara, just here to wish you are congratulations."

Rin knew that they were only being so formal in order to keep people who might hear them from suspecting anything. Honestly, she found it pretty funny, "Thank you Mr. Uzumaki, we're glad that you could make it. Your date looks lovely this evening."

Fu wanted to laugh so damn hard, but controlled herself, "Thank you miss, that means a lot, we wish you nothing but a lifetime of happiness."

Naruto leaned down and quickly whispered to Kakashi, "Is Yamato still sore about everything that he hasn't been able to get anything on me?"

"Do you even have to ask? I'm just surprised that you didn't try to do anything just to piss him off," Kakashi responded, as that had been an honest concern.

Fu leaned down as well, "Don't worry, I wouldn't let him risk your big day like that. We'll leave you to it, hope you guys have fun on your honeymoon. Maybe you'll even make some little ones, huh?"

Rin almost spit out her water when she heard that, "What?"

Fu was glad to see her little joke had worked, even better than she thought it would actually, "Relax guys, it was just a little joke. Come on Naruto, it looks like they've got some other people waiting for them. By guys, and good luck!"

They gave a brief wave as Naruto and Fu returned to their table near the other kings. Only two other kings were there, Gaara and Han. Gaara was there with Hinata, who'd been invited because of some kind of Hyuuga connections and, he was still head over heels for her. Han, well he was just their because he had to keep up appearances with the police force. He hated having to go, but as least this time he'd gotten a date to come with him. Kurotsuchi, the lovely bodyguard of Roshi, had been kind enough to join him for the event. The two had been friends for a long time, and it had always been apparent that there was some chemistry between them. You'd think that'd make this date easy, but with the way Han showed little emotion made it impossible for Kurotsuchi to read him. She was more than a little nervous, but still stuck close to Han, hoping that the date would go well.

Han and Kurotsuchi were already sitting next to one another, Naruto sat back down next to Gaara and Fu sat next down to Hinata. It was surprising how well the two women got along, considering how much Hinata had once chased after Fu's boyfriend. However, the two of them were somehow great friends. Hinata was not the kind of person to get angry at Fu for being with Naruto, and Fu just found Hinata too nice to even try and dislike. They had indeed become very fast friends.

"Oh my gosh, you remember Shukaku right? The adorable little red panda that you got for Gaara," Hinata started off happily.

Fu nodded eagerly, "Yeah, my little gift for how well he did with taking out Orochimaru. How's the little guy doing?"

"He's doing great, and he does the cutest little thing. He'll stand up on his hind legs and just kind of like puts out his paws in front of his chest and makes his eyes all big, and it's just soooo cute," Hinata said, mimicking the action with her own hands.

Fu was an animal lover, so she couldn't help but find that adorable as well, "Haha, oh that's great. You've got send me a picture of that. I feel kind of sad about Kurama right now though, our little fox isn't so little anymore. He's pretty much fully grown, and that's great, but I kind of miss having the little kit around."

Gaara, the red headed king of assassins, found the sight of them very amusing, "You'd never guess how much tension there could've been between the two of them by the way they act. They almost act like best friends."

Naruto thought about it, and that wasn't even the biggest shock when your thought about it, "It's a bit of a surprise alright, but I think that we can all agree that the biggest shock was how well things turned out with me and Fu."

"Damn, I'd forgotten how bad things had gone when you two first butted heads," Gaara unable to believe that he'd ever been able to forget it in the first place, "With how intense the two of you guys are now, it pretty much made me forget about the stuff that happened before."

Naruto shook his head and then noted something else from the past, "Huh, you know, now that I think about it, Mei called it all along about me and Fu."

It took Gaara a second to remember what he was talking about, but he quickly started to nod, "Oh yeah, I guess she did, didn't she?"

Han finally said something of his own, "I still remember that day, shit was going down hard. I was glad that we didn't attract any police or anything, because Naruto and Fu were screaming pretty fucking loud."

Kurotsuchi spoke up as well, "I think the only reason Roshi didn't call the police is because I smacked the phone out of his hand."

"Actually, you kicked it," Han corrected her, "I remember because you were wearing the same red heels that you've got on now."

Kurotsuchi looked down at her shoes and then back at him, "You remember what I'd been wearing that day?"

"You looked...nice that day," Han replied a little nervously.

While Kurotsuchi blushed at the compliment, Fu was feeling kind of weird that she couldn't remember much about the fight, "Huh, babe, do you even remember what that fight was about?"

"Give me a second to think," Naruto said, taking a little sip of his drink. After tapping on the table a couple of time, he finally blurted out, "Wait, was that the day that we were debating just how much my fee was for managing your guy's various criminal activities?"

That's when it hit Fu, "Yeah, that's exactly what it was about. I probably almost ripped your head off that day."

Naruto just couldn't let his next joke pass him by, "Considering what we did later, I'd say that you almost ripped both my heads off."

Fu was both a little embarrassed and a little turned on by that statement, "Don't go telling them too much about our relationship now Naruto, they don't need to know all the little details."

This conversation had captured Hinata's attention too, "Wait, are you guys saying that's the night you first hooked up?"

Naruto got a foxy grin on his face and pulled her a little closer to him, "Yup, that was the big night. Sounds kind of weird, but it was that fight that got us started."

Fu cuddled up into the crock in his neck, her mind beginning to fade back into memory of that night.

_Flashback_

"_Oh hell no! You have got to be out of your fucking mind!" Fu roared at the man who was supposed to be her leader. Naruto had just told all of them that he was thinking about 10% of the king's profit would be his new fee for using his connections to manage everything for them. While some people were going to debate him on that, most of them planned on doing it calmly, and rationally. _

_Fu was planning nothing of the sort, "10%, that's twice as much as you took before, which was even more than I felt you deserved in the first place!"_

_Naruto rubbed his temples, as he knew this was what was coming, "Look, that'll bring you guys down to 90%, and bump me up to 80%, plus the little stuff I make on the side. I'll make about the same amount as the rest of you do, which is only fair in my eyes._

_Bee didn't see what the problem was, "Yo, I don't mind! I got more money than I need to take care of mine! He's keeping us safe, and for that he's earned his take! Fool, ya fool!"_

"_Oh please! Keeping us safe? All he does is sit around and let his cop buddies and accounts and shit do everything! We could all do that without him!' Fu scoffed angrily._

_Yugito, the usually bitchy one, seemed rather calm during all this, "While I do think that 10% is a little high, I also think that Naruto's worth what we're spending on him. I've done the math, and between the safety that our business have and the time he saves us, we're getting a bargain for his services. Maybe even at 10%. Just imagine all the resources we'd have to get to in order to do it all ourselves, and the money we'd have to spend to do it."_

_Naruto puffed his chest out in pride, "I take pride in my job. Now, let me assure that this will be rate from this point on. As in, I'll never ask you guys for anything more than 10%."_

_Fu wasn't buying what the young blond had to sell, "Oh sure, until your ass get's more greedy and you decide that you want 15%, then 30%, and then eventually you'll just replace our sorry asses! No way am I letting that happen, I say that we just tell him 5% is all he's getting and leave it at that."_

_All of the kings were quiet for sometime, then finally Yagura said, "Okay, I'm fine with 10%, but how do we know you won't raise the price like Fu said?_

_Naruto started to think hard about that one, because it was very good question. How could he honestly convince these people that he'd never try and screw them over. In the end, he just finally decided to say exactly what was on his mind. His tone got a little low, and he got this introspective look on his face, "Well, if you get right down to it, there's eight of you and one of me, so you could always kill me. Of course, then you run the risk that I might have something set up with my cop friend, I only have the one by the way, just for that occasion. Then again, maybe you guys have enough cash and men to handle anything the cops throw at you, don't ya? I guess I could just use everything I have on you guys to take over the kings and replace you with men of my own too...huh, we've really got a house of cards set up here, don't we?"_

_Fu was getting very impatient at this point, "Does this have a point or are you just trying to bullshit us? If you've got something to say, say it asshole!"_

_Naruto sighed and decided Fu was right in this case, "I'm saying that if we don't trust each other, this is never going to work. We all have to be equals, that's the only reason I asked for as much money as I did. So that we could all be equal to one another."_

"_Kind of hard to equal when you're supposed to be the leader," Fu pointed out, clearly annoyed._

_Naruto tried to think of the best way to put it, "I'm a the leader, but only in a sense. I just kind of make sure things run smoothly and keep an eye on things, nothing else. For that, I take my fee, and I give you my word that 10% is as high as it'll ever be. If you're all still nervous, then we can set up protocols to make sure that no one king can destroy the other eight. Does that sound alright?"_

_As the kings took in his words, which they only somewhat understood, they felt he made some good points. For something as serious as this, they needed to have 100% trust, but also a backup plan for just in case the unspeakable should happen._

"_Tell ya what," Gaara said, breaking the silence, "If you set up all that shit up for us, I'll happily give you your 10%. I know that I can trust you, and I'm sure everyone else here feels the same."_

_Han certainly did felt that way, "I feel like this could actually make me some profit in the long run. Having to give Naruto more money will motivate me to make some more cash, and knowing my friends won't go down if I down if I do makes me a little more confident to sell somethings. I'm in for sure."_

_All of them looked around the room, as if to make sure that everyone else approved of this plan as well. They all seemed to be thinking the same thing. Naruto had never given them a reason not to trust him, so why start now? Even Fu was forced to give in after seeing them all begin to nod, "Fine! You get your 10%! But, if you ask for so much as 1% more, so help me!"_

_Naruto didn't need her to finish, "I get the point Fu. Thank you all for your time, I believe that wraps up our little shindig. Please go home and enjoy yourselves."_

_Mei found the whole conversation rather comical, "I tell you, the only two people who fight that much are people who have the hots for each other. By the way, whas was that hit wall during the fight?"_

_Kurotsuchi quickly said, "Oh, I just kicked a phone out of someones hand, don't worry about it."_

_They all got up to leave, all except for Fu who stood up and walked right towards Naruto. Kakashi, who at this point didn't really speak to kings much, leaned down and whispered to Naruto, "Looks like the crazy bitch is coming right at you. You want me to stick around and keep an eye on things? Make sure she doesn't go after you or anything?"_

_Naruto just waved him off, not being too concerned at the moment, "Nah, you had home. I can handle this one."_

_Kakashi walked off just as Fu got right in Naruto's face, "You are one smooth talking asshole, ya know that?"_

"_Yes, but you'll have to be more specific as to what you're referring to," Naruto responded calmly._

_Fu looked him up and down, hating his overly calm demeanor, "You might have everyone else fooled, but not me. I know that you can't be trusted. One of these days you're gonna ask for a raise in your rates, and when you do, I'm gonna be there to tell all of the others I told you so."_

_Naruto pull a lighter and cigarette out of pocket, "Do you have wax in your ears? We agreed that I'd set something up so that no one king can screw over all the others in case one needs to be eliminated," He was about to light the cigarette, but stopped himself, "Oh I'm sorry, do you mind? Don't wanna be blowing smoke in your face if you're not a smoker."_

"_Honestly, I'd rather that you didn't. I think it's a disgusting habit...thank you for asking," Fu told him gratefully. She was honestly impressed that he'd even asked. It was so hard to be mad at him when he was being so nice._

_Naruto put them back in his pocket, "No problem, and there's no worries about me asking for a raise in any way, shape, or form. I really did just want to make sure that we're all getting roughly the same amount of pay."_

_Fu never liked taking people's word for things, so Naruto was about to get an earful, "Maybe that's true, but I'm gonna make sure that I'm there with you when you set up the whole failsafe thing for the kings. That okay with you?"_

_Naruto figured that might help him in the long run, "Sounds good, that should make the kings a little more likely to trust me while I set the whole thing up. Still not sure how I'm gonna do it though. I mean, I've gotta think of some way to make it impossible for the kings to turn on us and go running to the police. That's not nearly as easy as it sounds ya know."_

_Fu rolled her eyes and got ready to leave, "Please, I'm sure that I'll be able to think up something even if you can't. I'll call you later to hash out the details. See you later."_

"_Why do you hate me so much," Naruto blurted out, in order to prevent Fu from leaving. _

_Fu was taken very aback by the question, "Hate you? What what the hell makes you think that I hate you?"_

_Naruto gave her a deadpan look, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's the way you bite my head off every time I try to talk. Maybe it's the fact that you refuse to do just about anything I tell you. I think that the biggest reason though, has to be the constant name calling and insults that you send my way."_

_Fu could hardly dispute a thing that Naruto had said. She did indeed belittle him just about every time the two of them were together, "Okay, so I find you very irritating, that much I'll admit, but I don't hate you by any means."_

"_I see. So you just don't have any respect for me, is that it?" Naruto asked wanting to get to the root of off this issue. It had been going on for far too long. _

_That one had caught Fu complete off guard. "Well, I'm not sure if I'd say something like that. I mean, I do have some respect for you."_

_Naruto could see that she was dodging the questions, "Just not enough to actually do what I ask you to do? Look, Fu, I'm not trying to be dick here, we just need to get this thing sorted out. We can't keep going on like this if we're going to work together. Now I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer honestly. Do you think that you could run this more efficiently than I do?"_

_Fu knew that they were entering dangerous territory with this question but there was no turning back now. She was just going to tell him exactly what she'd been thinking, "I don't think that I could run this operation better, I know that I could. There's things that you do everyday that simple baffle me and make me wanna fucking rip your head off. You never explain some of these things, you just do them. To put it frankly, it seems like you always find some kind of way to piss me off. There's your honest answer."_

_Naruto took just a moment to think through what she'd said, and then looked her in the eye, "Alright, I can see where you're coming from on all those points. I know that I can be a bit cryptic at times, but everything I do is for the good of the kings. Now, do you mind if I give you an honest opinion on you?"_

_Now Fu just had to hear this, "Lay it on me. I can only imagine what you have to say."_

_It was a risky move, but Naruto felt it was time to lay his cards on the table as well, "Now, before I start this, I just want you to know that I have the highest amount of respect for you. I've never seen or even heard of anyone treating trafficked animals as well as you do. You seem like a kind enough woman...but you're a control freak. You can't stand to have anyone be even a little bit in charge of you. If you're not in control, you're a real bitch to work with. Needless to say, that's just about the only side of you that I've ever seen. I know that you resent me for being in charge, but, to be frank, you need to get the hell over it and work with us dammit."_

_Fu let a low growl loose from her throat, that Naruto couldn't help but find a little sexy, and leaned down closer to Naruto, "Oh, I need to get over it huh? I need to get over the fact that I'm being lead by an imbecile? I need to get over the fact that all my friends are being lead by an imbecile too! An imbecile that's likely to betray them?"_

_That finally got Naruto angry and made him stand up, "Okay, now that's too far! I would never betray the kings, they means just as much to me as they do to you! I was the person who started this thing in the first place! You met all of them the same day you met me and I've got the same tattoo that the rest of you do, so why? Why in gods name can't you just act decently to me and let me try to help all of them! It's because I'm the one in charge and you know it you crazy bitch!"_

_Fu pushed Naruto so hard that it knocked him into a wall, "Oh, you're the one in charge huh? Well, why don't I just show you how in charge you really are?"_

_That got Naruto's attention in the worst possible way, "Are you fucking threatening me?"_

_What Naruto didn't know is that Fu really wasn't threatening him, not in the least. Whenever she was around him, there was just something weird that went on inside her. There was just something about the way that he fought against her every move, the way that he managed to fight back against her when no one else could. It was both maddening and exhilarating! _

_Before Fu knew what she was doing, she grabbed Naruto by the neck and pulled him into a deep kiss. Naruto's eyes show wide open, and then slowly started to close as the kiss fogged his mind. The kiss finally broke after a few short minutes, and he was able to speak once again._

"_As much as I'd love to continue, I think I'd first like to be sure that you aren't planning on killing me while you've got my guard down," Naruto said, barely able to keep focus._

_Fu started to kiss his neck, "If I wanted to kill you I would've done it already. Besides, the other kings would kill me if I did. Don't question it, lord knows I'm trying not to."_

_Naruto only had one more question "Your place or mine?"_

"_Your's, it's closer," Fu said jumping into his arms. The two would have a very intense night of lovemaking to follow. It was a night that neither of them would ever forget._

_Flashback end_

"So that's how the two of you got started, huh? Well, I've heard worse love stories," Kurotsuchi noted, having listened to the story closely. It was pretty good overall. The way those two had started out made it seem a lot more believable that her and Han would work well together.

The story had captured Han's attention as well, "So, did you guys just kind of start dating after that?"

Fu gave a sort laugh at hearing that. He couldn't have been farther off, "Not exactly. In fact, it wasn't until a while after that that we started dating. It was this whole big thing and it's a long story but frankly, it's a story for another day. Let's just have a few more drinks and then get out of here. Make sure we don't step on any toes during Rin's big day, huh?"

"Not a bad idea," Han agreed and took Kurotsuchi's hand, "But I can't leave before I get at least one dance with this lovely lady. Shall we?"

Kurotsuchi blushed and followed him out to the dance floor, "Um...okay."

Gaara watched the two of them and gave Hinata a small smile, "What do you say sweetheart? You up for a dance?"

Hinata stood right up and dragged him to the dance floor, "I thought you'd never ask!"

Naruto smiled at his friends, taking a brief sip of champagne as he did, " Man, this is good stuff. Rin pick it out?"

"Yeah but she doesn't seem to be drinking much of it. I haven't seen her drink it at all actually. Huh, weird?" Fu noted.

Naruto didn't really think much of it, "Eh, she's never been much of drinker from what I could tell. She probably just had once glass and we didn't see it. Are you gonna want one last dance before we go?"

Fu thought about for a moment and then shrugged, "It'd be nice, but I don't have to have one. Let's just see if they play any songs that we like and if they do, we'll dance."

"Simple, but that'll work," Naruto said, as he heard a phone in his coat pocket start to ring, "Huh, I thought I turned that thing off."

He reached in his coat, which was hanging on his chair, and pulled out the phone that had been ringing. Curiously enough though, it wasn't his phone. It was an older style flip phone, and Naruto didn't have any of those. Fu had noticed it too, "Is that your's? I've never seen that one before."

Naruto shook his head to let her know it wasn't his phone, but he wasn't think about her much. His concern was on who the caller ID said was calling this phone. It said right on the small screen, 'Naruto Uzumaki'. It was a little crazy, which is why he just had to answer it, "I'll be right back Fu, I'm gonna go see if there's someone who might know who this phone belongs to."

"Sure, just don't be too long. We really do have to get going before to much longer," Fu said, turning her attention back to her dancing friends.

Naruto walked away from all of the various people, just far enough so that no one could hear him talk, and then answered the phone, "Hello?"

A deep voice came on the other end of the phone, "_Am I speaking to Mr. Naruto Uzumaki?"_

Now Naruto was really thrown off, "Yes, it is. Care to explain how I'm calling myself from a phone that isn't even mine?"

The man on the other end seemed somewhat amused by his little statement, "_Hmp, yes, I can understand your confusion. The phone was placed in your coat by an associate of mine. I used your own name on the caller ID to make sure that you picked up."_

"Clever," Naruto complimented, "Now tell me what the hell made you go through all the trouble of reaching me."

The caller could tell from Naruto's tone that it was time to get down to business, "_A yes, my purpose. To begin with it, let me ask you one very simple question. Are you a god fearing man, Mr. Uzumaki?" _

Now that was the last question that Naruto had been expecting him to ask, "Okay, so this clearly isn't going to be a normal call. What the hell, I'll play along. Yes, I'm a god fearing man."

That wasn't clear enough for the caller, "_So you believe then, that there is a higher power watching over us all, judging us? You believe that the lord will some day hand us down our judgment on the day that we die?"_

Naruto hadn't got into a conversation about religion in a long time. Frankly, it was a topic that made him a little uncomfortable, "Let me put it to you this way. I know that there is a god, because I've seen the face of the devil. In my line of work, I've seen some pretty horrid people. If there's that much evil in the world, there's some good in it too."

"_A very logical explanation. I like it," _ The caller told him, "_Are you some of that evil that you were mentioning before?"_

Just when Naruto thought this guy couldn't say anything weirder, "I don't know If I'd say that I'm evil…"

That wasn't quite the answer the man seemed to be looking for, "_Hm, considering all of the things that you've done, I'd say that you're at least somewhat evil. Not everything you do exactly, but more what you let go on. I mean, just look at the horrible little monsters that you work with."_

Naruto never was one to stand for it when his friends we're insulted, "Now you just hold on a second, no one talks about my friends like that!"

"_Now there's no need to get touchy," _The man said quickly, "_I was just pointing out some of the awful things that you help them do. The murder, the theft, the drugs, it's a just a bed of sin really."_

Now this guy was really starting to piss him off, "I may not know the bible word for word, but I do remember something like, 'Judge ye not, lest ye be judged.'"

The man on the other side laughed, "_A fair point. I feel like this has taken more of a hostile turn, so let me simply tell you why I've called. My name is Pain, or rather, our name is pain. My associates and I are members of a little group we like to call The Akatsuki, and we are dedicated to making the world a better place. Now, we like to do this peacefully is we can, which is why I've called. Mr. Uzumaki, we'd like to give you and your friends a chance to walk away from you criminal activities and start a new, better life. A life where you make the world a better place."_

Naruto couldn't believe what he was hearing, "This is a joke right? I mean, you can't really think that we have the ability to just walk away and forget our organization, now can you? Kohona's criminal underworld would be turned on it's head, there'd be fights breaking out like mad, hell, there'd even be some attempts on our life I bet!"

Pain, as he was now know, had taken this into consideration, "_Of course we wouldn't expect you do it all at once, it would be over a period of time. We could work something out of course."_

Naruto was more confused than ever, "You really must be fucking crazy. What the hell do you plan to do if we refuse?"

"_Well it's a bit messy," _Pain started to say slowly, "_But if you won't change your ways, then you will face your judgement. Meaning that, we'll kill you and everyone that's a part of your organization."_

Naruto found the threat comical, "Oh, is that all? Look buddy, you don't even wanna know what happened to the last guy who tried to threaten us."

"_You killed Madara by turning off his machines and melted Orochimaru," _Pain said easily.

Naruto blinked a couple of time, registering what had just been said, "...How in the Sam hell do you know that?"

Pain knew that he had his full attention, "_We know a great many things about you Mr. Uzumaki. We know that you're dating your follow king, we know that your father was a great hero, and we even know that your friend's wife is pregnant. Sakura's due any day know, isn't she?"_

Naruto could feel a cold sweat being to form on him, "Who the hell are you people?"

"_We're the Akatsuki Mr. Uzumaki. We're the ones who helped Madara take you on in the first place. Although, the results for that were abysmal," _Pain responded, sounding a little annoyed.

Naruto needed to try and scare this guy a little, "And what makes you think that your results will be any better?"

Pain fired right back at him, "_Because Madara had something to lose, that precious legacy of his. Now us, we've got nothing but our goal. We're not going to have to play with you awhile to get what we want like Madara did. We can just go right out and kill you, and all of your friends to, not to mention the woman you love."_

"If you so much as touch her," Naruto growled into the phone.

"_...You know what? I think that you're taking in too much info at once. How about I give you a week to just let all of this sit, and then you can give us our answer. We'll even send you some more papers so that you know what you're getting into. Please, enjoy the wedding Mr. Uzumaki," _Pain said, hanging up his phone.

Naruto heard the other end of the line cut short before he could tell Pain to wait. He took the phone away from his ear and put into his pocket, slowly walking back to his chair. All the time he was trying to piece what had happened. Whoever this Pain guy, or group, was, they knew more about Naruto and his friends than should've ever been possible. For fucks sake, it almost sounded like they knew who his father was, but that couldn't be possible...could it? I mean, it took Naruto years to figure it out, how could they possibly know?

Thought like this were what was running through his mind as he sat down at the table next to Fu. She had known him long enough to tell that something was bothering him, much like Rin could with Kakashi, "Everything okay babe?"

Naruto could only give her one honest answer in a very small voice, "I'm not sure. Something just came up that could be an issue for the kings. Then again, it could just be some crazy guy."

Fu gave him an odd look, "Care to explain?"

"Not just yet," Naruto told her, "I'll call a meeting with the kings tomorrow. It'll be easier that way and it'll give me some time to gather my thoughts."

That was at least an answer Fu could accept. He wasn't holding back, he just didn't wanna explain himself more than one time before he was sure on some things. As the two of them sat there for a moment, the song on the speakers began to fade out, and another began to fade in.

_-I sit here in my lonely room_

_Sunshine breaks the dusty gloom_

_And spots the magazine on the table_

_Your cover girl eyes burn right through me-_

Fu suddenly got very excited, "Oh babe, it's our song! Come on, we've gotta go dance!"

Naruto smiled as he heard the music play. It really was nice the way that Fu could always calm his nerves. He got up and walked towards the dance floor, his hand firmly in Fu's.

_-I see myself in the looking glass_

_I see some freak staring back_

_Even though I know it's me_

_It's the inside I wish that you could see-_

Naruto and Fu got to the center of the dance floor, holding one another close as they did. They began to move to the slow, romantic beat. It was beautiful little moment like this that had kept Naruto going through all these years. As the chorus began and his friends dance around him, he wished that the moment would never end.

_-And hearts like mine, Love girls like you_

_Yeah hearts like mine, love girls like you-_


	2. Mothers and Fathers

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the next epic installment of Nine Crimes, Nine Kings: Judgement. So very good to be back writing this again, it gives me something to focus on when I get stuck with my screenplay writing and what not. Sorry it's a day late, the server being down screwed me up. It's actually okay thought, I wanted to move my posting day to Sundays anyway. This chapter will very much revolve around learning a little bit more about he changes of the best 8 months and get a little bit better view of the Akatsuki. I'll also be experimenting with something new in this chapter, so keep an eye out for that. There will be a little exposition in this chapter/episode, but the next one will be pick up the pace, I promise. First couple always have to be a set things up after all. Haha, that was a better intro, nice and short. Thank you so much for reading and please review.

* * *

Naruto had felt many before when he laid next to Fu. There had been happiness, anger, confusion, and even a little awkwardness at times. However this is the first time that he'd ever felt complete and utter fear. Sure, he'd been little bit scared the day before the big shot that Sasuke had to put in his chest, but he'd had faith in his friend. This was different. Pain and these Akatsuki guys, whoever they were, knew more about Naruto's life than anyone possibly should.

The more Naruto looked back and thought about all of the info that Madara had, the more scared he became. Just how much did they really know? Not just about him, but about Fu as well. Her life could be in danger, the life of all of his friends could be in danger. God, it all just had him so scared.

As Fu ran her hands acrossed his body, she could feel Naruto's fear as if it were her own. She wanted to do everything she could to comfort her lover, "Come on Naruto, talk to me, You've hardly said a word since we got home from the wedding."

Naruto wasn't sure what to tell her just yet, but he knew better than to lie to her, "I got call from someone I don't know, someone who seemed pretty messed up. The call made me real nervous, that's all. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow, when I call the kings meeting."

Fu looked up at him and narrowed her eyes, "Alright, but if you're lying to me,"

Naruto leaned down and gave her a little kiss, "Don't worry Fu, I learned my lesson on that one. Hey, at least it ain't like I ever cheated on you or anything."

"Nope, just almost got yourself killed," Fu said in a bit of a joking manner, "Seriously though, you're not holding anything back on me are you? You're gonna tell me everything tomorrow? You won't leave a single thing out?"

Naruto gave her a reassuring little hug, just to improve what he was about to say, "I'll tell you every last little detail of the call."

The only issue with that was, Fu wanted to know now. She would have to give him a little incentive. She slipped her hand underneath the waistline of his boxers as she said, "Now come on Naruto, can't you just give me a little information?"

Naruto shuddered a little bit at her touch. The woman knew how to get to him, "Ohhhh…look, do you remember when Bee said that everything with Madara seemed to easy? That there might be something worse to come," Fu nodded in confirmation, "Well I think that something worse may have finally come."

Fu had a feeling that was all she was gonna get from him, but it was enough to get her thinking, "Wait really? Are you trying to tell me we've something worse than Madara is coming after us?"

"Actually, I think that I might have what created Madara in first place coming after us. Well, the people who made it possible for Madara to attack us anyways," Naruto started to say, "Really Fu, I think that I should wait until tomorrow to finish. If we could maybe find something else to do in the meantime,"

Fu started to climb up on his chest, knowing pretty well what he had in mind, "Oh, I think that the two of us could come up with something."

Before Fu could finish her train of thought, a fully grown red bundle of fur jumped up on the bed. That bundle of fur was of course Kurama, Naruto's pet fox. The fox wasn't quite a year old yet and was very smart. Although, he still wasn't smart enough to know the difference between the when two people were wrestling and when they were trying to have a very different kind of fun. Naruto didn't mind though. He was just glad to have the little guy around. Kurama was still, to this day, the best gift Fu had ever gotten him.

Naruto scratched Kurama's head as the little fox licked him, "Sorry, but I think this gonna have to wait until tomorrow night."

Fu had a better idea, "Or we could just take a joint shower in the morning? A nice, long, hot, steamy, shower. What do you say?"

"I say: Woman, you are truly amazing," Naruto said, pulling her into a deep kiss.

* * *

While others were busy pondering what the Akatsuki truly was, the Akatsuki was just busy planning their next move. All of the Akatsuki had gathered in their usual meeting place, a dark, damp basement in an old abandoned church on the outskirts of Konoha. There was eight of them, all sitting around a small table. The Six Paths of Pain sat on one side, they were the lower members of the group. They didn't even get to have names yet. They were all just Pain. Then the two leaders sat on the other side, Nagato and Konan. It was a funny sight, since all of the Pain's had orange hair while Konan and Nagato had blue and red respectively. The heavily pierced group sat around the table, discussing the course of events that was soon to come.

Nagato looked over his followers briefly, their face just as emotionless as usual. That was just the way he liked them, "So, which of my path's would like to fill me in on the event of day?"

Yahiko, the most senior of the pains and the closest to being given a higher rank, gave him his answer, "I called Naruto earlier this evening. He is aware of his options and I plan on sending him some literature as well. Just a some little things to hopefully make him see our way of thinking. I gave him a week to make up his mind, as usual. I do hope that this is to your satisfaction."

Nagato remained silent this time, so Konan was the one who answered, "You did very well Pain, thank you. What your brother and sister Pains? How have they been doing with our other current project?"

The only woman of the pains felt the most comfortable answering this question, possibly because she was a woman, "Our other project is complete actually. Orochimaru's old assistant will no longer be a plague on the world. It was quite disturbing to find out he intended to continue his teacher's work, so we were quite happy to take care of it. Asura-Pain, you could please hand them the box so that they may see?"

Asura, the path was bald and the most heavily pierced of the group, took at a wooden box and slid it over to Nagato and Konan, "But of course, I'd be happy to show them our work."

Ngato looked at the box and put his hands on the lid, opening it slowly. Konan watched closely over his shoulder and smiled along with him when they saw what was inside, "Excellent work my paths. This just might be your best work yet."

The paths beamed with pride for a moment, before Yahiko interrupted with an idea "Sir, would it be alright if I sent that to Naruto? I think that it would be perfect for getting our point across."

Nagato continued his dark smile as he slid the box back over to his paths, "A splendid idea Yahiko-Pain. I'm sure that it'll help him to understand our purpose. Now, before Konan and I dismiss you all, let recite our creed."

All of the Pains nodded and then bowed their heads, preparing to recite the words they'd said so many times. They all began to speak at once, "God is lord, to him we are grateful. To show this gratefulness, we shall do his work. He is a god of anger, and a god of vengeance, so we shall be vengeful, and angry. All those who do not see what is the truth, we shall make fall fall to our might, and we shall send them to our lord so that they may be judged. This is the mission and sole purpose of our lives. This is the purpose of the Akatsuki."

The all finished their creed with smiles on their faces. It was the creed of madness. It was the creed of people who clearly didn't even understand the very thing that they claimed to be protecting. The people who claimed to be following god seemed to be doing something that would be much in the realm of the devil. Not that they'd believe anyone who ever told them that…

* * *

Kakashi and Rin couldn't help but feel their entire wedding night was nothing but a blur. Sure, a few moments had stuck out and would likely be remembered by the two of them for years to come, but most of it just felt like some kind of big fever dream they'd been so busy. There was only thing Rin knew for sure that she would never, ever forget; the moment where Kakashi had taken off his mask so he could give her an honest to goodness kiss at the altar. For him, taking his mask off and showing his scars to other people was a big deal, but to give Rin the perfect moment, it was worth it.

The next day however, may have been an even harder one to focus on, as both Kakashi and Rin had a little work which needed to be done before they could go on their honeymoon. After the long day they'd had just before, all they wanted to to do was sleep for a while. Still though, it needed to be done so that they could make sure that they could enjoy their honeymoon without worry. That fact still didn't make it any easier for Rin to keep herself awake at her desk.

"Uuuuhhhh, how much freaking paperwork do they expect one person to be able to do?" Rin said, about ready to fall asleep right on her keyboard.

Kakashi laughed at his new bride, something that he loved to call her now, and walked over from his desk to pour her a little cup of coffee, "Oh come on, just think, in 48 hours we'll be on our way to warm, sandy beaches with little umbrellas in our drinks. Sounds nice doesn't it?"

Rin could practically feel the warm sun on her face already, "Oh yeah, just getting to lay back in one of those nice, warm lawnchairs by the water. Now that's the stuff."

"And getting to spend all night underneath the covers in our hotel room," Kakashi reminded her, "That's the part I'm really looking forward to. We're gonna have to get all of the paperwork first though. You want me to run and get a box of donuts? Might help keep us up?"

Rin rolled her eyes and her husbands desperate attempt to get his favorite food, "No way in hell am I eating donuts right now. I already feel like I'm gaining weight as it is."

Kakashi couldn't believe the words that had just come out of Rin's mouth, "You, gaining weight? You're like the healthiest person I know. Trust me, you're not gaining weight. I did see Sasuke and Sakura the other day. Now she's been gaining some weight, but then again she's supposed to. She's got eat plenty of food to keep that baby healthy. Seriously, she's just gonna pop any day now."

Rin felt he might have been talking about that a little too loudly, since there was other people around, but that really wasn't what was on her mind most at the moment, "Huh, that reminds me, I actually read somewhere the other day that in really tight knit groups of friends, women tend to have babies very close to one another."

"Wouldn't surprise me," Kakashi said after thinking it over, "Seeing baby makes other people think about babies I guess."

Rin had him on the right track, "People don't always have them on purpose though, sometimes it's just coincidence. Maybe we ought to keep an eye out for someone in our little group who might be having a kid. You know, someone who isn't drinking, gaining weight, just got together with someone."

That got Kakashi thinking, "Oh yeah, I've been meaning to ask you, how come you didn't drink the champagne you got for the wedding? I thought that you were really excited about it or something."

Rin had him so very close now, "Well I just didn't feel it would be healthy to drink any. At least, not at the time…"

"Rin, I think that sometimes you can actually be a little too healthy…" Kakashi started to say, before the wheel began spinning in his head. He slowly started to turn to Rin, "...No way."

Rin said in small, but happy voice, "Kakashi Hatake...you're gonna be a daddy."

Before anyone in the room knew what was happening, Kakashi rushed over and picked up Rin, swinging her all around and whooping with joy. Rin giggled as he started to scream, "Woohoo! My wife's pregnant! We're gonna have a baby! Haha!"

Everyone in the room, Guy, Yamato, the captain, all of them heard Kakashi scream and gathered around, cheering with joy as well. Rin had been hoping for a good reaction, but she never expected one like this. Not that she was complaining. It seemed like just about everyone in the precinct had gathered around to congratulate them. Everyone but one man. One strange, heavily pierced man, who merely watched from a small camera, hidden in the shadows. This man smiled as well, but for a very different reason. A very dark reason indeed.

* * *

More than one celebration was going on during that day, as a particular Akimichi was playing host to the Nine Kings most recent gathering at his restaurant. Yes, Choji was pouring them drinks, getting them food, laughing at their jokes, and making killing from it all the while. Not that any of the King's minded that he him making all that cash. Finding a good place for them to meet was hard, so he was well worth the money.

Even the worried Naruto was doing his best to seem happy, he wanted the king's in a good mood when he told him the new's after all. It had been almost two months since they'd all gotten together, so this felt like a party to them. They may have argued a in bussiness type situations but when they were just acting as friends, the kings tended to to have a hell of a lot of fun. That was probably the reason they'd stuck together this long.

Yugito loved few things more than fine wine, Roshi and Han prefered the simpler, but still tasty, draft beer. Now Bee still loved his bourbon and Utakata would kill for a nice glass of whiskey. Yagaru didn't drink much, although he didn't mind a shot of tequila now and then. Naruto and Fu, they had one major thing in common in this area. They both loved a nice, aged, bottle of scotch. The two of them would drink it for hours on end. Yes, each of the kings and form of liquor that they loved. However, it always tasted better when they were together.

Even though the liquor flowed and good times were being had, Naruto knew that he was going to have to get to business eventually. Everyone was being so loud, it was just about impossible to get their attention. Naruto was going to need a little bit of help, "Fu, babe, you mind quieting them down for me so I can get down to business?"

"Sure thing Naruto, just give me one second," Fu said with a sweet smile. She stood up and took a nice, deep breath, then briefly screamed, "Hey motherfuckers, quite down! We've got some shit to do!"

Everyone in the room, which was actually only the kings since they'd rented the whole restaurant out, was silent for a second, then slowly began to laugh. Not in a mean spirited sort of way, just in a general, 'Yeah, the was funny' kind of way. Temari, who'd come along with her brother to keep an eye on Gaara, could hardly stop herself from laughing, "Oh man Fu, it's been way too long since we hung out. You're just too much damn fun."

Bee decided it had been way too long he'd done rap either, "Fuck ya man, we got to have plan! We've got so much to talk about, we all need a night out! Aw yeah! Fool, ya, fool!"

Bee's brother A decided to let that one slide, "You know what, since it's been a while since you last rapped, I let that one slide. Just watch it though."

Yugito was having fun with all this, but still felt like they needed to get to the point, "Not that I'm not enjoying all of this, but what exactly did you set this all up for? We're all super busy, so you wouldn't have us come here for no reason. Hell, you might even be the busiest out of all of us."

"Well, I'm kind of busy I guess, but I've got something that we really need to talk about. Do you all remember all that info that Madara managed to get on us a while back?" Naruto asked, taking a sip from his scotch.

Han scoffed at the memory of that particular man, "You mean the fact that he somehow found out every single last little thing that we'd ever done in our lives? Yeah, I'd say that we remember that."

After all of the shit they'd gone through to get that information, who could forget it. Naruto felt that it was dumb question looking back, "Well, I've finally tracked down the source of all the info. Well, more accurately, the source tracked down us."

Well, he had Gaara very interested, "Wait, you mean that Madara didn't just track down the info on his own? I thought that he just paid his guys to get all of it."

"Well, you're close, but not quite there yet. He did pay in order to get that info, but he paid an independent group to get it. An independent group that is apparently known as 'The Akatsuki,'" Naruto told them, hoping he'd remembered the right pronunciation of the name."

All of the kings started to mumble to themselves, as if trying to figure out what this information must have meant. Only Bee and A were silent, as they were both pondering the same thing. Bee looked over at A and asked, "It's not just me right bro, that name sounds familiar?"

A nodded in agreement, "Sound like one of those groups that Maska is always talked about."

Now Roshi was a little confused, "Maska? Who the in the hell is Maska?"

Bee did his best to explain, "Maska is our cousin, and he is one cool motherfucker. He's one of those professor types, teaches about cults and shit. He might know who these guys are."

Naruto noted that so that he could come back to it later, "Hm, good to know, but I already have a decent idea of what these guys are all about. Actually had a discussion with one of their members over the phone the other day."

Fu thought back to the wedding just the day before, "Wait, is this part of the whole thing with the cellphone and why you've been acting so nervous?"

Naruto figured that she'd have the whole thing figured out, "I knew you'd get the idea. If you all wouldn't mind, the call is in the phone's memory and I can just play it back for you. I think you really need to hear this guy to understand what's got me so nervous."

Yugito was getting a little tired of waiting, "Oh for pete's sake, just play the damn call! You're acting all skittish about these guys and we don't even know why yet...hiccup...okay, maybe someone should take the wine away from me."

Naruto rolled his eyes with a small laugh, along with all of the other kings, and took out the phone Pain had called him on. He opened it up and put it on speaker, then played the recorded message. All of the kings were silent as Pain's voice came on followed shortly by Naruto's. All of them shuffled around nervously, especially when they discussed the whole thing about the kings facing, as Pain put it, judgement. By the time it ended, Fu could manage to say one thing, "...well that's fucked up."

"I'd argue with you, but frankly I don't have a leg to stand on," Naruto said, tapping his finger on the table. He had no idea how the kings were going to react to this, so this was going to be a very telling moment on the situation.

Yagura was the first person to say anything about it, and he sounded very uncertain of himself, "So… do you think that these threats mean anything? Can these guy's back up what they're claiming they can do?"

That was a question Naruto really wished that he had the answer too. He might have been just as much in the dark about all this stuff as the other kings were, "I'm not certain, but considering how much info they managed to dig up on us, I don't wanna risk having to fight them head on until we know more about them."

Yugito just had to get a little sarcastic, "Okay, all you did there was state the obvious. However, I can't say that I blame you. That call we just heard was very vague. I think that there's one question we all need to ask ourselves before we go much farther; how do we know if these guy are serious, or just full of shit?"

Han was glad that someone else had said it, "That is the first thing we need to figure out. Less than year ago, almost all of us took a nice hit thanks to the war with Madara. I don't wanna have to do it again and lose even more money. I'll tell ya one thing, we sure as hell aren't just gonna lie down and give up like they want us to. I've built my business up to far to give up now!"

"I know you've all got your businesses is to take care of and I can respect that," Naruto started, "I wish that I knew more so that you could all feel more at ease, but I've only been able to figure out one thing for certain so far. They've got enough legit information on us for me to be able to say with confidence, that these guy are completely legit. We're fucking with some smart people right now."

Roshi started to think out loud, "What info could they know that makes you so certain of that? How do you know this isn't just information that they got from Madara?"

Naruto took sip of his scotch s mulled over what to say next, "There's one thing that they knew about me that not even Madara knew. Something big."

Gaara raised an eyebrow, "Now Naruto, you aren't hiding something from use now are you? Whatever the Akatsuki know that Madara didn't, you can just come out and say it."

Naruto moved his hand over to Fu's seat and put it in hers. She looked at him and gave him a brief nod to let him know that she felt he could tell them. He looked over the kings and then started to say, "I'm about to tell you something that only a select group of know. It's the identity of my father, and it never leaves this room. Got it?"

The kings knew that they needed to say yes, as they'd never seen Naruto act like this before. He told them everything, as long as it wouldn't put them in any danger, so to see him holding something back for his own personal reason's was totally foreign to them. Naruto gulped up what was left of his scotch, and then began to speak, "On the day we first met, I discovered the starting truth that my father was none other than the great hero of Konoha himself, Minato Namikaze."

There were several audible gasps around the room, gasps of both shock and surprise. To hear the the king of Konoha's criminal underworld was in fact the son of it's one time white knight was more than a little confusing. Bee looked about as lost as anyone could possibly be, "What in the fuck man? How does Mr. Big Badass Crime Lord come for the Savior of the City? That shit just don't add up!"

The only thing that naruto could think to do was start from the beginning at that point, "Alright, you guys want the story about how I got started? Fine, but I'm gonna warn you, it's a long one. Sit back and enjoy, maybe even pour yourselfs another drink...except for you Yugito, you really have had too much wine."

Yugito pouted a little bit, "Hey, I haven't had that much too drink. You're not even all that blurry...hiccup...okay, yeah, someone take the wine away."

Fu came over and took the glass from her as Naruto started the story. He did have to the tell them the things about Kakashi but he did his best to make sure that his old friend didn't came out sounding too bad. Naruto was at least happy to see that everyone was edge of their seat as he told them his tail. Honest, he figured that everyone was just gonna tell him to shut up after a while. Even Fu, who'd heard the story before, still listened very intently.

"And, that's about it," Naruto finally said, getting to the part where all of them had met, "That's when I met you guys in the cell after I got arrested. We all went got the tattoos, and, as they say, the rest is history."

The story had been a great one, and all of the kings had enjoyed it. However, Gaara took another, deeper meaning to it, "I'd just like to say thank you Naruto, for telling us this story. I know that it must have made you a little nervous to tell us something as major as this. Now I can see why you hid it for so long."

Naruto still felt a bit bad about it, "I know, but I'm the one who always preached about how important it is that we all trusted one another. Makes me seem a little hypocritical to hide something like this from you."

They all waved it all off, not really thinking much of it. Fu knew why they weren't angry, "Don't worry Naruto, they get why you didn't tell them. It wasn't anything important and it's something that's really personal. They don't need to know every last detail of your personal life after all."

That did pretty much sum up how all of them were feeling and at this point Naruto was out of things to say. He decided that it was time to lighten the mood, "Look, I'm grateful for your understanding with all this, but my little story really isn't the point. The point is, the guys we're fucking with here are definitely gonna be an issue. We need to find out as much about these guys as we can. Any ideas as to how we might go about that?"

"Well hell man, let's just ask Maska," Bee told them, "I'll be willing to bet you just about anything these son's a bitch do, he'll know about."

As much as Naruto loved Bee, his brother was the one who made more sense. He turned to A and asked, "So this Maska really is legit? If he is, then I want you talking to him asap. We need every little tiny piece of information that we can manage to get. These guys sounded like they were planning on killing as soon as possible, so I'm not screwing around this time."

A could really tell how important this was to Naruto, not strange considering that lives could be on the line once again, "Maska is legit alright. We'll head out to seem him first thing in the morning. I've been meaning to catch up with my cousin anyways."

"Good...well then, I think that's it for now," Naruto said leaning back in his chair with a large sigh, "I'd love to stay here and party with you guys, but I'm just so damn tired from being worried. I just wanna kick back in my apartment and maybe watch a movie. Something that doesn't require much thought if you know what I mean."

They all knew how stressful this job was for Naruto. Being the personal protector for a group of crimes lords wasn't easy. The king's appreciated his hard work, so much so that the money didn't feel like it was reward enough at time. Yagura looked over at Naruto and said, "You know something my friend? I really don't envy you. Even though you make about as much money as the rest of us do, it just doesn't seem like it would be worth it. How do you keep yourself sane?"

Naruto put an arm around Fu and gave her a little kiss on the head, "I have my ways. Anyways, I think I really am gonna go and watch that movie. Fu, care to come along?"

"Well, considering that we practically live together, I'm gonna say yes," Fu told him with a bit of sarcasm.

The two of them stood up and grabbed their coats. Naruto gave them a small wave before he left, "Thanks for coming guys, be sure to enjoy yourself once I'm gone. Have fun."

With that, Naruto and Fu maid their leave. The kings would spend hours more drinking, laughing, and telling each other stories. It all came to a rather quick end when all of them realized that they did have things to do the next day and would need time to get over the hangovers they would likely be getting before too much longer. Still though, it had been nice for the kings to get together. It was a day to remind themselves of why they'd come together in the first place. They stuck together, no matter what happened. That it was made the kings impossible to truly defeat. It was a fact they hoped the Akatsuki would soon find out.

* * *

Naruto and Fu found their way home as easily as always. Well, not quite as easily, as Naruto had a touch of scotch still in his system. He hit nothing on his way back to him humble abode. As he pulled into the parking lot of apartment building, something in his memory suddenly sparked. It was something he was supposed to tell Fu, "Oh fuck, I almost forgot to tell you. I got a call from Kakashi today. Guess what?"

Fu shrugged as he parked the car and they got out, "What?"

"Rin's pregnant," Naruto responded, knowing good and well what Fu's reaction would be.

Fu suddenly got the urge to start jumping up and down, "Really? That's awesome! We'll have Sakura's little baby around, and then 9 months later we'll have Rin's! Hey, when's Sakura due anyways?"

Naruto thought for a brief second as they walk up the starts, "Today, actually. Huh, I should call Sasuke and see how he's holding up." He noticed a box with some paper strapped to it on his doorstep, "Oh hell, what's this?"

Fu leaned down and picked up the papers, "I'm gonna guess this is the 'reading material' that Pain mentioned before. As for the box, who the hell knows. I wouldn't open it is I were you though."

"No," Naruto said as put a hand on the box, "These guy's said I had a week, and they're not the kind of people who sound like they'd lie. This box was meant to be opened, and that's just what I'm gonna do."

Naruto opened the box and got a sickening look on his face. He quickly backed away from the box, "Holy fucking shit! I mean...just shit! I've seen some fucked up shit before, but putting that on a guy's doorstep...Damn!"

Fu looked at him tentatively, then opened the box herself before Naruto could stop her. It took everything she had not vomit at what she found inside, "Who the fuck is that?"

Naruto peeked back into the box that was filled with a bloody mess. A man's decapitated head lay inside, a man with a white head of hair, "Kabuto, Orochimaru's old assistant. I'm gonna make some calls and get that thing the hell out of here. You go inside and try to get that image out of your head. I'll handle the rest."

Fu quickly got inside and let Naruto get to work. This was his specialty, cleaning up messes. All she could hope right now is that he could contain this mess before it got too big.

* * *

Sasuke had been in some of the most high tension situations a human being could be in. He'd had guns pointed at him at point blank range, knifes held to his balls, hell, he'd nearly been force to swallow a suicided pill, but none of that even compared to the fear that was coursing through his body now. To be fair though, a woman in labor can do that to you.

"Sasuke Uchiha, if you don't hurry the up so that we can get to the hospital and get this thing out of me, I swear to god I will grab your scrotum and pull it up over your head," Sakura screamed from the doorway.

Sasuke walked out of the house with half a dozen bags in his hands, not sure if he could manage to get them all in the car before Sakura held true to her promise. He popped the trunk with the keys that he'd somehow managed to squeeze into his hand and threw the various bags inside, "Sakura honey, do you really think that we need this much stuff for a little stay in the hospital?"

Sakura sent him a glare the could kill a kitten, "I'm the mother of your child! If I want tell to spin the earth in the other direction, then you fucking do it! AHHH! Now get in that damn car before this girl rips me apart from the inside!"

Sasuke threw open the car door so that Sakura could get in and then quickly ran to the other side of the car. He put it in reverse and got the heck out there as fast as he could. They needed to get to the hospital as fast as humanly possibly. There was still one burning question though, but he needed to ask it carefully "Um, Sakura, sweetie, have you decided on a name for her yet?"

It had been found out ages ago that they were having a girl, but hey still couldn't figure out a name for her yet. Sakura tired her best to breath as she answered him, "I had, ah, one new idea. I was thinking something that, oh, sounded like it came from the both of us. How about Sarada?"

"Sarada," Sasuke repeated, letting the name roll around on his tongue, "I like it. It has a nice little,"

"Ahhhh! Shit," Sakura yelled, cutting him off, "Great, Sarada, now get me to that fucking hospital!"

Sasuke turned his attention back to the road, trying to get them there quickly without killing them in the process. Not as easy as it sounded, since he was getting a phone call right at that moment. He looked down at his phone for a millisecond to see that is was Naruto that was calling him. Naruto was a must pick up, even in a situation like this, "It's a work call babe, it'll just take a second. I need to let them know I won't be able to talk for awhile."

Sakura didn't honestly care. She was far too busy with other things, "I don't give a fuck what you do, just make sure that you don't stop this car!"

Sasuke noted that she was swearing an awful lot for someone who was about to bring new life into the world. He picked up his phone and started talking quickly, "You better have a good reason for calling me at a time like this! My wife is in labor as we speak!"

Naruto was feeling a little guilty on the other end, but this was a call he felt he needed to make, "_Congratulations and I'm sorry, but this is important. It won't take long I'm just calling to tell you to lay low for awhile. Stay home with Sakura, take care of your daughter, shit like that. You've got plenty of money, so just try and do as little jobs related to my business as you can manage. Got it?"_

Sasuke was a little surprised by the request, but knew that he had enough money to hold him over for at least a few months, "Yeah, sure. Should be fine as long as I don't have to wait more than two or three months. Mind if I ask you way real quick?"

"_Because I got a severed head on my front door today," _Naruto said in order to keep his friend on the line, "_We've got some crazy fuckers coming after kings, and I like to keep you out of it if I can. You know, since you've got the kid coming and all."_

Sasuke couldn't help but be a little touched by the words, "Well thank you, I promise that gesture won't go unapertitated. Sakura's going nuts over here, mind if I call you back when it's more convenient?"

Naruto completely understood, "_Not a problem, you tend to your family. We've got some of our friend looking into the issue tomorrow morning. I'll call you when I have an update. As for you, you call me when Sakura's had that baby. Me and Fu are gonna visit that little bundle of joy as soon as we can."_

"I'll be sure to call you when we've got the news. I've gotta go, but thanks for the heads up. Goodbye," Sasuke said as he hung up the phone.

Sakura saw him hang up and got a little curious, "Who was that? Ahhh, more contractions!"

Sasuke could see that his wife needed this hospital more than he'd originally thought, "Nothing, just a quick call from a buddy of mine at work. Let's get you and my daughter taken care of already, huh?"

Sakura looked over at her long time husband and smiled, "Thanks Sasuke, I knew I could count on yooOOOOOU! OH, DRIVE FASTER!"

Sasuke stepped on the pedal with his wife's reaction. He had to say, after watching her do something as amazing as growing a baby inside of body, the life of his child to boot, he had really come to admire Sakura. There was no doubt in his mind now that he loved the woman, but now wasn't the time to be thinking about that. Now was the time to get her somewhere she could safely give birth to Sarada.


	3. Loss

Well hello there everyone, great to have you back for what I'm sure will be another interesting installment of Nine Crimes, Nine Kings: Judgement! Now, this is the chapter where thing will get a little bit more exciting. It'll start off with Bee and A, as I set up in the last chapter, but after that shit's gonna get a little more intense. This is the chapter that's start to kick things up a notch. Well, that's gonna be about it for me. I thank you guys so much for reading and please review.

* * *

Maska was man who'd always had bizarre interests, even from the time he was a boy. He'd loved history, more than anyone his age should've. Movies, books, articles, anything that he could possibly find related to history fascinated him. Over time, his love of this subject began to focus on one thing, one very particular thing. He absolutely loved to research cults. Something about them just fascinated him. Mostly it was the way that they could seem to brainwash people into believing just about anything. Thankfully, he'd been able to turn this fascination into a career as a small time professor at a university in Konoha. It was a simple job, but it made ends meet and let him pursue his passion. What more could you ask for?

On this particular day, Maska had family coming in to visit. His two cousins, A and Bee. Lord only knows what possessed their father to name them that, but it didn't really matter. They'd grown very close nonetheless. That's why he'd been so excited when he got there call. It was gonna be a ball to see his favorite cousins again.

He was thinking about all this while sitting at his desk, looking around at the various masks and books that lined his office. Most of them were just little trinkets he'd picked up over the years on his various trips. A knock at his door caused him to jump a bit, before yelling, "Who is it?"

"Yo yo! It's your cousin's fool! Open up so that you can party with me and my bro!" Bee rapped from the other end of the door.

Maska chuckled to himself, his cousin's rapping had always seemed endearing to him, "Well then get your ass in here man. What the hell are you waiting on?"

Bee opened the door and he and his brother walked inside. Maska stood up to greet his cousin's properly, giving them each a small hug. He was a tall man, 6 foot 2 inches, was black like his cousins, and bald. (Just picture him looking and talking like Samuel L Jackson) It didn't take a genius to see they were related.

They all sat down, Maska at his desk and his two cousins on the other side, and started to talk. Maska, thinking this was a typical visit, said, "So, what do you two wanna do first? Grab some lunch, see a movie? It's a little early, but we could and hit the bars, find some nice girls?"

A would've loved to do all of those things, but he had business to attend to first, "That's a plan, but we've got one little piece of work to get done first. We need your help if you don't mind?"

Maska didn't understand what kind of use he could be, "Me? I study a bunch of cults and religions, shit like that. What use could I be?"

"Well, that's hard to explain yo. How much do you know about how I make my cash ya fool?" Bee asked, making sure to not to give anything away.

Maska didn't know exactly how Bee made his money, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't something he wanted to know about, "I don't have a clue about anything, but I kind of think that's the point."

Bee was very glad he got the idea, "Well then, you know better than to ask shit like that."

Maska smirked and gave a small nod, "I guess that I do. Alright then, what do you crazy motherfuckers need to know?"

"We were wondering if you knew anything about a group known as the Akatsuki," A started, making sure that he pronounced the name right so that it wouldn't be an issue. This was something that had to be certain on.

Maska eyed both of his cousins carefully. He stood up from his desk and looked for a book that was one of the shelfs as Bee and A sat in silence. After just a few seconds, Maska came back with a book in his hand, one that had a red cloud on it, "You guys are lucky that you came to me. I'm probably the only person in this whole damn city who knows who these guys are."

Bee knew that Naruto was gonna get the information that he'd been looking for, "Aw yeah, that's my badass for ya! Coming through when it counts!"

Maska felt a little prideful as he opened up his books and showed them what he had, "The Akatsuki is cult that's been around for the about 400 years. They formed right around the time the Salem Witch Trials started going hot and heavy. They're a very extreme branch of Christianity, probably one of the most extreme ones out there."

Bee looked at the pages, but didn't get much out of them, "Extreme huh? Something tells me you ain't talking about sports"

Maska flipped to a page that had a small picture on it. It was a group of people with cloaks that had the red clouds on it, "This is one of the earliest pictures of the group. They're very secretive, so it was hard to get even this picture. There's not a ton known about them, but I can give you guys a pretty good idea of what they're like if you want."

A had to get every single piece of info that he could, "Don't leave out anything. If you know how many freckles are an Akatsuki's members ass, I wanna know about it."

"Well I don't know that much, but I'll tell you what I can," Maska said as he got ready to go into lecture mode. "According to what I've been able to research, there's two ranks that you can be in this particular organization. Either you're a full fledged member or your what the they call, A Path of Pain. Basically, the paths just do whatever actual members say. Simple enough."

Bee figured they'd be some stuff like that, "Path's of Pain? Ha, talk about lame!"

Maska knew that he wouldn't be calling them lame for long, "That's what you think, but wait until you find out what these motherfuckers like to do."

"Oh come on, stop beating around the bush and tell us already," A said, wanting to get the info.

Maska flipped to another page in his book and showed them a picture of group of men lying on the ground, covered head to toe in bullet holes, "That would be just one of the examples of their Righteous Judgment. They see themselves as God's hitmen. Apparently, they think that it's their job to take out all those who do not live their live's properly."

Bee saw some seriously flawed logic in that, "Yo, the don't sound too spiritual to me fool, ya fool."

Maska saw some problems with it too, "Ya, I've read the good book a couple times, and I don't remember anything about that in it. They'll do their best to make it a big, public show when they can. You know, make an example out people, but they'll just plain old kill you if they have to."

A could see already that these guys were gonna bigger trouble than he'd originally thought. Naruto was right about them, "Well aren't they just pleasant people? So what else?"

Maska closed the book and shrugged, "There is nothing else. You can see this ain't a very thick book, and the rest of it is just about some of confirmed attacks they've made. Like I said before, not much is known about them."

Bee and A had been hoping for a little more than that, but they were just gonna have to settle for what they could. Bee was kind of okay with that, since he wanted to go partying with his cousin, "Shit man, it's cool. You only know so much, we ain't no fools. I say that we go hit the town, knowing us, we'll burn it down! Aw yeah!"

That rap even had A laughing a little bit, "Hate to say it, but my brother's got a point. Come Maska, we got shit to do!"

Maska stood up, eager to finally get this started, "Thank god, this was starting to feel work or something. Let's get going. I know just this great place in town, good food and waitress in tight clothes."

That was all that either of them needed to hear. They were out the door before Maska even had his coat on. Funny, since he was the only one who knew where the bar was.

* * *

A and Bee may have learned about more educational side of the Akatsuki, but another member of the king's organization was about to learn about more about them in the real world. Dodai had been Yugito's bodyguard for years, ever since she'd joined the Nine Kings. The man may have been old, but he was also very deadly. He was one of the few people outside of the kings that Yugito actually trusted. Sadly for Yugito, that number people in that circle was about shrink.

Dodai was walking home to his small apartment, which was actually in the bad part of Konoha, carefully keeping an eye on everything around him. His neighborhood was filled with petty thieves and punks, the lowest forms of criminals. Being the kind of person that considered crime a form of art, Dodai found their pathetic way of going about it infuriating. He'd killed more than one of them who'd been foolish enough to cross his path. Yugito on the other hand, was a master of crime, and he was happy to help her. He'd known her long before the kings had ever started and had done his best to be something like a father to her. He loved her very much.

Now the punk with the orange hair and the face full of metal that had been following him all the way home, that was someone that he wanted to shoot at point blank range. He was stocky punk, but it looked like more muscle than fat. Dodai knew he could be a slight threat, so he decided to get rid of him early. He turned around kept his hand near the pistol strapped to his hip, "Care to explain why you've been following me since I left my office? Don't try and bullshit me now son, I've been around long enough to know when I've got a tail on me."

The orange haired punk looked him up and down, as if checking him over, "Why do you think that I've been you tailing sir?"

"Oh, a smartass huh?" Dodai asked with a scowl, "If you're after money, you ain't gonna get it. So why don't you scram deadbeat!"

The punk never showed any emotion as he said, "Money is not my concern. I have something far more important on my mind sir."

After that, Dodai figured he must have been another one of the idiots who'd always liked to come and challenge him. After he took out a couple of guys who'd tried to mug him, Dodai got a bit of a reputation, and people start to come around just to prove the old guy wasn't so tough, "Even better, you're someone who's here to try and kill me. Honestly, I feel like I'm some old gunslinger in a western movie sometimes. Fine, if you wanna die like the rest of them, then let's do this already."

Dodai grabbed the for the pistol on his hip and started to pull it out at lightning speed. That speed had saved his life more than once, but this time something shocking happened. The punk was even faster than he was, clipping his knees before he drew the pistol. Dodai fell to the ground with the punk standing over him and his gun kicked off to the side, "I wouldn't advise you to do that sir. It'll only manage to get you hurt."

It may have looked like Dodai was finished, but he had a backup plan. Whenever he went to pull his gun, he'd pull a small knife from his pocket as well. This practice had also saved his life on several occasions. He started bring the knife up, planning on burying it his opponent's throat, "Stop calling me sir asshole!"

Just as the knife was about plunge into the skin of the punk, a hand sprung up to stop him. It was the punk's, and it was holding down his knife holding hand, "Another thing I wouldn't advise you to do. I just want to ask you question a couple question if you wouldn't mind."

Dodai wasn't about to even give this guy the time of day, "Fuck you and get the hell off from me!"

The punk was getting a little angry at the lack of respect he was getting, "If you'd kindly refer to me as Pain from this point forward, I'd greatly appreciate it. Now then, please answer my questions before I'm forced to do something that I may or may not regret."

Dodai grabbed his wrist as best he could, "I could break this arm right now if I wanted to."

"You could try, but I wouldn't recommend it," Pain told him, continuing his lack of emotion, "Please, just answer the questions, it'll make everything go much smoother."

Dodai decided that this was one situation where he might just want to play along. This kid was starting to seem like he might actually know what he's doing, "Fine, but make it quick. I'm a much bigger threat than I look."

Pain was well aware of just how dangerous he could be, despite his age and the lack of an eye. However, Pain was just as dangerous if not a little more, "It'll be very quick if you merely tell me what you want to know. Now, are you aware of the nature of Yugito Nii's business?"

Dodai now had a much better idea of what was going on here, "You motherfucker, if you so much as lay a finger on her!"

Pain grabbed Dodai by the throat, "Now calm yourself, we intend Yugito now harm for the time being. Our concern is you. Now, do you know the nature of Yugito's business?"

Dodai gave him the most menacing look he could manage in his position, "Do you know who you'd be dealing with if you took her on? If there's a brain in your head, you and whoever these 'we' people you've been talking will turn around and forgot you ever even thought about her!"

Pain knew that he could take that as a yes, "Well, I guess that answers that question. Now just one more brief question. How did you lose that eye of yours?"

That was the question that really pissed Dodai off. With speed that shouldn't be possible for someone his age, he used his good hand to throw smack Pain across the face, jumping back up to his feet as he did. Dodai spun the knife around in his hand, intending to kill Pain like the little punk that he was. What Dodai didn't know though, is that it was far too late for that. Pain was already standing right in front of him with sharpened metal rod in his hand. In split second thrusting motion, Pain jammed the metal spear into Dodai's gut. The poor old man began to sputter and spit out blood.

Pain leaned into his ear and whispered, "Now, since you're about to die anyways, why don't you must tell me all about that eye you lost."

Dodai's head was spinning, he couldn't think much. It was all he could do to remember the eye story, "It was back when I was beat cop. I'd gotten some call to handle a domestic disturbance. This guy had been beating the shit out of his wife and daughter for like a month, but she refused to press charges."

Dodai coughed up more blood, so Pain propped him up a little and put some pressure on the wounded, "Ah, I see. Just stay with me long enough to finish the story Dodai, then I'll let you be at peace."

Dodai mustered up all the strenght that he could, "He'd done it again, really got her good this time. When I got there he'd already finished with his wife and had moved on to the kid. Now I was tired of watching all that bullshit, and I finally had a scenario where I could end it...so I did."

"There's something that I can admire in that," Pain told him, completely honestly, "But how did you lose the eye?"

Dodai was barely conscious at this point, "The wife, she was an idiot. She started screaming at me for killing her husband. Out of nowhere she just busts this bottle and comes at me with it. I was able to keep me hands up and keep her from doing too much damage. Problem is, she took out eye. That bitch gotten beaten day in and day out, her daughter too. I saved her damn life from that monster and she takes out my eye. If I had to guess, I'd say that's why I shot her."

Pain shook his head the dark ending, "Now that truly is a shame. Did the child make it out alright?"

Dodai was fading out, "Huh...yeah, she was fine...Yugito always was a tough girl."

Ah, the plot thickened. So that was how the two of them had come to meet. After hearing that, Pain almost felt bad for what he had to do next, "Not a bad story, but it doesn't change what I must do now. You've been acting as if you're blind to Yugito's crimes. You shut your eyes and just let her go on with her schemes to rob people of millions of dollars. Since you've been acting blind for all so long, we think that you should go into the afterlife blind as well. Goodbye Dodai."

Pain raised up his hand and brought it up to Dodai's good eye. He shoved his fingers into Dodai's eye socket and dug around for a second. Dodai was just aware enough to start screaming in agony. The last thing Dodai felt before he passed on was Pain ripping his eye clean out of his head.

"Well, that was messy," Pain said, looking down at the eye then back at Dodai. He took out a small jar, unscrewing the top and place the eye inside. It was something that he was going to need later. Once he was finished, he walked away. The police would be arriving soon, and he didn't want to be around once they arrived. There was still far too much work to do.

* * *

In a small office in the building that was home to the business of one Yugito Nii, only one sound could be heard...crying. The woman who was known as tough, gruff, mean spirited bitch of Konoha's Nine Kings was bawling her eyes out. She was throwing furniture and smashing things, trying to deal with all of her grief. Dodai, the man that had saved her from hell on earth and became like a father to her, had been brutally murdered. His eye had been ripped out, he'd been stabbed in the stomach, and god knew what all else. It was a monstrous act, and one that she wouldn't soon forget, or manage to get over easily.

Yugito grabbed a lamp that she had on her desk and smashed it on the ground, "You sorry motherfuckers! I swear that I'm going to find out who killed him and I will skin them alive and feed them pieces of themselves! He was a good man!...He was a good...good...man!"

Yugito fell back into her chair and began to sob once more. She didn't like to show emotion, but this is one time that she didn't care. Losing Dodai was something she just couldn't pretend didn't bother her. All she wanted to do was greive her heart out.

There was a knock at her door, not that she gave a damn, "Go away! I don't want visitors right now!"

"It's friends Yugito, open up," A voice called from the other side of the door. She recognized it as Naruto, "Come on, we just wanna help!"

Yugito wiped her eyes and prepared to tell them off again, but she stopped herself before she opened her mouth. This wasn't the time for her to try and act all independent. She needed someone to comfort her a little bit. After a few seconds, she forced herself to walk over to the door and open it. Naruto and all of the other kings were standing behind the door, waiting for her.

Despite the way that she talked about them at times, she was glad to have friends like the kings round. She sniffed and asked them, "Hey guys, what are you doing here?"

Naruto could tell that she'd been crying, so he put a gentle hand on her shoulder, "Hey Yugito, how are you feeling?"

Yugito was still choked up, so she did her best to keep talking, "I've been better...I'll be okay though…"

Naruto looked her over and knew that she needed help, "You don't have to act strong around us you know, we know that you're hurting."

"No really...I'm...just...just fine…" Yugito tried to say, before bursting into tears. She cuddled up into Naruto's shirt before he put her arms around her. All of the other kings surrounded them, trying to comfort Yugito as well. They all knew what it was like to lose someone close.

Fu stroked her hair, starting to think of what she might be able to say, "That's it Yugito, let it all out. Don't hold anything back."

Utakata went over and grabbed a chair, pulling it up so that Yugito could sit down, "We're so sorry Yugito, I know that Dodai was a huge part of your life."

Yugito looked up at Naruto and saw that she'd gotten mascara all over his shirt, "Sorry about your shirt Naruto. Jeeze, I'm such a fucking mess right now."

Naruto didn't give two fucks about the shirt, "Forget about my clothes, let's just worry about you for now. Is there anything that we can do for you?"

"No, not unless you can bring Dodai back to me," Yugito said as she was handed a tissue, "I just can't believe he's gone. He saved me from my bastard drunk of a father and my worthless bitch of mother. Dodai rod in on a white horse, kept an eye on me, paid for my education, the whole nine yards. I owe my life to him, and then some motherfucker just comes along and kills him like a wild animal. I swear, when I find out who's responsible for all this,"

Bee decided to cut her off in order to tell her something, "Yo, no need to worry Yugito. We already know, thanks to Mr. Naruto! Aw yeah!"

Yugito's head shot right over to Naruto, "You know who took him out! Tell me already!"

Naruto was hoping to let this wait until Yugito was a little more calm, "Okay, I want you to stay calm. I've already got a plan of action, so there's no need for you to worry about anything. Dodai is going to be avenged."

Yugito gave him a slight glare, "Yeah, by me, once I find out who killed him. Spill Naruto!"

Naruto knew her desire for revenge could be dangerous, but he didn't really blame her for being so angry, "Kakashi and Rin are off on their honeymoon, so I couldn't send them out to take a look, but I was able to get a buddy to do it instead. Asuma's one of the many people I've got on my payroll as a private investigator, and he's damn good at his job. Based on what he found, we think that this Akatsuki group were the ones who killed him."

Yugito shot right up out of her chair, "What? Those religious nuts did this! Oh it's go time!"

"Woah, slow down their girl," Roshi said, trying to keep her from acting rashly.

Yugito turned towards him, "Slow down my ass! I'm getting all the hired guns I can and I'm gonna blow those fuckers to kingdom come!"

Gaara was just one of many who knew that would almost certainly end badly, "Yugito, I really don't think that's the best course of action right now."

Yugito couldn't believe her companions, "Dodai is dead and you all want me to sit around here twiddling my fucking thumbs? Hell no!"

Naruto knew what he needed to say in order to calm her down, "You're right Yugito, Dodai is dead. However, I know that if he was here right now, he'd smack you for trying to do something so stupid as go up against people you know nothing about. You're heads not clear and you know it."

Yugito was having a hard time beating the logic, "But...but Dodai…"

Han took this one, "We know how hard a time you must be having right now, which is exactly why you're going to let us handle all of this. Don't worry, we'll get everything taken care of. Okay?"

Yugito gave a brief whimper, "Oh...Okay. And guys?...Thanks."

Naruto gave her his best foxy grin, "Don't mention it. It's our pleasure."

All of them continued to do their best to help out Yugito for the next few hours. They let her tell stories about Dodai and drink all of the wine that she could possibly want. Anything that could make her feel even a little bit better. Naruto was doing his best to have fun with it, but had a little bit of planning to do in his head. This planning was interrupted when Fu came over to him and tapped on his shoulder, "Hey babe, you got a second?"

Naruto, who had been sitting in a chair around Yugito's desk with the rest of the kings, simply looked up and said, "Sure, what do you need?"

Fu leaned down to him and whispered, "I think Yugito's gonna need someone to stay with her tonight, and I think it'd be best if it was another woman. You mind if I keep an eye on her?"

Naruto loved how kind Fu could be when someone was in need, "Of course, do whatever you need to. I was gonna go and pay Jiraiya a visit tomorrow anyways. Gotta make sure all my moves are perfect before I tell the Akatsuki to bring it on."

Fu knew that was the smartest thing to do. She had one more thing she needed to ask him, "Hey, can you go and talk to Yagura for a little bit before you go? He's been silent pretty much this entire time and I'm kind of worried about him."

Naruto had noticed it too, and was planning on talking to him anyways, "Sure, that won't be a problem. He does seem a little off today, I'd better make sure he's okay. I'll talk to him and then go visit Jiraiya, okay?"

"Okay," Fu replied, giving him a little kiss on the forehead, "Hopefully I'll be home tomorrow night. If I'm not back, make sure that Kurama get's to his visit at the vet's office the day after tomorrow."

Naruto could handle that easily enough, "Sure, he always loves going to see Kiba and Ino. Talk to you later."

He gave her a little kiss on the cheek and then walked over to sit next to Yagura, who was deep in thought. While he was usually quiet, he was never quite this quiet. Clearly, something was up. Naruto decided to open with a joke, "Hey Yagura, don't talk so much. You're annoying the crap out of all of us."

Yagura didn't even seem to realize it was a joke, "Hm, oh sorry, didn't mean to bother you."

Naruto had to fight to keep himself from smacking his forehead, "It was a joke man. You alright man? You seem as about as lively as corpse tonight."

Yagura leaned back into his chair and sighed, "That's about how lively I feel. This whole thing with the Akatsuki has me gotten my thinking about religion, and my faith, all the shit like that."

Naruto got that, he'd been feeling the same way, "Hell, you ain't the only one. I've been dealing with all that crap too. You come to any kind of conclusion about anything?"

Yagura had only been able to come up with one thing, "Yeah, that crazy people like them are the ones who make it damn near impossible for people like me to believe what I believe in peace."

Now that answer surprised Naruto a little bit, "Huh, I've gotta say, I never pegged you for a religious man."

Yagura knew why Naruto was surprised, considering what all of them thought about him, "You mean because you all think that I'm gay?"

Naruto never expect him to be forward with it, but it was the truth. All of the kings had figured he was gay a long time about, but none of them had the guts to say it. They'd never ever seen him with a woman, and they could've swore that they'd seen him eyeing up a couple of guys too. So after a while, they'd all started to assume, "Well um, yeah, actually. Not that we're trying to offend you."

"Oh, I'm not offended," Yagura said quickly, "In fact, you're all correct. I've known I was a homosexual since I was in high school."

Naruto gave a sigh of relief, "Oh thank god, we've all been wanting to ask you about it for ages, but we've been so damn nervous."

Yagura knew it was an iffy subject for many people, "Well now you can put that issue to rest. However, that doesn't mean that I can't be a religious man just the same."

Naruto could kind of admire that, "Huh, and here I thought that all religions considered homosexaullity bad."

"Many of them do," Yagura agreed, "but if doing one bad thing gets you sent to hell, I think that we're all pretty much screwed as it is."

Naruto suddenly chuckled, knowing that he was right "Yeah, I guess that's true. Well, I'm just gonna leave ya be. I've got a meeting to get to. Please, for your own sake, try and have some fun tonight. Hell, even if it isn't for you, do it for Yugito."

Yagura had a hard time saying no to that, "Fine, I'll perk up a little bit. Now, you go and take care of this shit with the Akatsuki, because they're not wasting any time."

Naruto gave a somber nod and then stood. He walked over to give Fu and Yagura one last hug before he shoved off for Jiraiya's house. The only thing he was gonna do first was go and check up on Kurama. Not a good idea to let a wild animal go unsupervised for too long, be it fox or human.

* * *

"Jiraiya, haha, stop it!" Tsunade screamed as he chased around the house.

"Yeah right" Jiraiya yelled, laughing with her, "If you didn't want me to chase you, you wouldn't walk around the house in a towel!"

Tsunade turned around and giggled like a little school girl as Jiraiya picked her up bridal style. She had just gotten out of the shower after her and Jiraiya had spent yet another night together. This was the fourth one this week, "Honestly Jiraiya, you're like a teenager sometimes. You want us to fuck like bunnies or something."

Jiraiya leaned in close to her face with a playful little grin, "I don't hear you complaining."

Complaining was the last thing that Tsunade would do. This little thing the two of them had going for the past 8 or 9 months had been most the fun she'd had in years. She felt 20 years younger thanks to it. Now she wasn't about to admit that to him, "Oh shut up."

She silenced him with a deep kiss as Jiraiya walked over to the living room and sat down with her. He began to slide his hand under the towel, but Tsunade stopped him, "Sorry loverboy, but there's no time for that. I've gotta go get dressed and then head off to work. Naruto had a couple of guys he wanted me to look over. Nothing too bad, just the flu or something like that."

Jiraiya gave her the best puppy dog eyes that he could manage, "Oh come on Tsunade, if it's that bad they can wait a bit."

Tsunade lifted his head up and gave him one more quick little peck on the lips, "Sorry, but no. I'm gonna have to go take care of this, but maybe I can stop by later so we can have some more fun. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to put on some actual clothes."

Jiraiya was sad to see her get off his lap and walk away, but he did enjoying watching hips sway as she left. That woman had been driving him mad in all the right ways, and wasn't gonna make her stop anytime soon. Tsunade was the best thing that had happened to him since he found out Naruto was still alive.

She came back from the bedroom in her usual day to day attire and gave Jiraiya a little kiss on the cheek, "I'll see ya as soon as I can Jiraiya. Hey, maybe when I get back I can bring a nice hot fudge Sundae kit. We can have a nice little something to eat and then see if we can put it to...Other uses."

Jiraiya shuddered as she whispered the last part into his ear, "God woman, I love you."

That shut Tsunade right the hell up, "I um..I...thank you…"

Jiraiya knew he'd said a little too much there, "Tsunade, I just,"

She was already starting to leave. Before Jiraiya even had time to turn around, she was at the front door, "Sorry Jiraiya, I gotta go. I'll be back later. Bye."

Jiraiya got a glimpse of her just as she closed the door. He groaned and fell back onto his couch. Before long he was smacking himself on the head, "Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why in the hell would I say that? Dammit!"

He was smacking himself so much that the almost missed the knocking at the door. Jiraiya got up and walked over to it with a glum look on his face. His plan was just to send whoever this person was away so that he could continue hating himself, at least until he saw who it was at his. The young blond that was standing at his doorstep was someone that he couldn't send away, "Naruto, what's up man? I didn't think we supposed to meet up for another week or so, and weren't we gonna go to a restaurant or something?"

Naruto could understand the confusion, but he didn't understand why his surrogate grandfather looked a little bit depressed at the moment, "Well this isn't really a personal visit, I've got a pretty big problem to take care of. Can I come in? You look a little down about something."

Jiraiya just blurted it out like he had before, "I told Tsunade that I loved her."

"Did she not say it back or something," Naruto asked, doing his best to piece it all together, "The first 'I love you' is usually good news."

What Naruto didn't know is that Jiraiya had just made the most terrifying declaration ever to Tsunade, "Boy, it ain't that simple. Telling Tsunade that you love her is like telling a drunk you just bought him a bar that's gonna make him rich. Sure it'll bring him good things, but how is it all bound to end?"

Naruto had blank look on his face, "What?"

"Look, Tsunade's little brother died tragically, then not long after that her lover died tragically," Jiraiya started to explain as he went back to the living room, "For her, love is a big risk. She doesn't wanna get too attached to someone when she could just lose them like the others."

Naruto hadn't thought about it that way. When you really got down to it, Tsunade must have feared love more than anything on earth, "Ouch, that's rough man. But she really cares about you, I'm sure that this isn't gonna be a big deal."

Jiraiya figured he should just stop talking about it now, "How about we move on? What's this pretty big problem of yours?"

Naruto pulled out the papers that the Akatsuki had left for him, "Check these out at your own risk, they're pretty fucked up."

Jiraiya took some pictures out of the envelopes and immediately recognized some of them, "Holy shit, that is fucked up. Actually, I think that it was more fucked up in person."

"In person?" Naruto parroted.

Jiraiya had to think back to his days as Konoha's finest detective, "Some of these pictures are from old cases I worked. The one's I've seen before all had a similar MO, so we figured they were all committed by the same people. Likely a cult actually."

Naruto was liking how Jiraiya seemed to know about some of this already, "Did the name, 'Akatsuki', ever come up?"

Jiraiya looked up, very startled, "Yeah, a couple of times actually. How the hell did you know that?"

Naruto took out the notes that Bee and A had gotten from Maska, "Because they just became an issue for the Kings as well. We've been gathering all the info we could get on them, and this is what we've got so far."

Jiraiya could see they'd gotten farther than he ever had with it, "Damn, and I'll I was ever able to get was the name of these crazy fucks. I'm impressed."

Naruto let him look everything over as he told him the whole story about when this had all started. From the call, to the head on his door, to Dodai, every last little detail was told. Jiraiya's mind began to dance with various possibilities, "I suppose it would be foolish for me to hope that you guys could just take their offer and end the Nine Kings all together."

"Yes, it would," Naruto said knowing where Jiraiya was going with this, "Trying to get out of it at this juncture, would more than likely get me killed. Fu and the other too, so that's a big fat no."

Jiraiya had a feeling that he was right, "I suppose that's True. So how do you want to handle this? Like we did with Madara?"

Naruto knew that never work, "Hell no, that's a good way to get all of our hearts ripped out. These guys are coming right at us, and they're coming to kill. This is war, and war is hell. We're going right in there and we're gonna kill these sorry bastards."

Jiraiya could get behind that, "Well then, this should be a pretty simple strategy to make. Give me about a day and I'll have a game plan all drawn up for you. You call the Akatsuki and tell them it's on. We want them planning and panicking as soon as possible."

Naruto was glad to do that, "alright, I've gotta make a couple of other calls first, but I can do that on the way home. Come on Kurama, time to go."

Jiraiya saw a fox run up to Naruto, "Wait, how long has he been here? I never even saw him come in."

Naruto picked up Kurama and walked to the door, "He's been here the whole time. Must have been hungry too, he spent like the whole time in kitchen," he said as he pulled out his wallet, "Here's a twenty to cover whatever he took from the fridge."

Jiraiya took the money with a confused look on his face, "He know's how to open the fridge?"

Naruto shrugged and gave Kurama a little scratch behind the ears, "What can I say? Kurama's a smart fox. See ya Jiraiya."

"Yeah, see ya," Jiraiya said, as the door closed and he got back to work.

* * *

The Akatsuki were feeling very good about itself right now. They'd killed the pathic sheep known as Dodai and had done plenty to make sure that kings would be wary of them. Perhaps they would saves those foolish souls...or, perhaps not.

Yahiko had been the one who made the call, an honor for someone with the rank of Path of Pain since it was usually done by a senior member, and he honestly felt like he'd but the fear of god into Mr. Uzumaki. He was busy at the moment, preparing himself for a good night's rest. As he was brushing his teeth, change his clothes, various things like that, his phone went off. Well, not his phone, the phone that he had to keep an eye on in case Mr. Uzumaki called.

Yahiko didn't waste a moment in answering it, as he knew that it could only be one person, "Hello there Mr. Uzumaki. I must say, I wasn't expecting your call so soon. Have you already seen the error your ways?"

"_You lied to me," _Naruto said from the other end of the line, "_I was told that I had week to make my decision, but you killed Dodai before my time was up."_

Yahiko tried to explain it to him, "We didn't exactly lie, I said that you and your friends would be safe. I never said anything about the people who work for them. By the way, how did you get this number? I'm going to guess you had your friend Shikamaru figure it out, am I right?"

You could almost hear Naruto's eyes rolling on the other end of the phone, "_I just dialed the number the phone said called me genius. Now, you may say that you didn't lie to me, but I say that you at least mislead me. I don't like being mislead, and I really don't like seeing my friends getting their hearts broken. You see where I'm going with this, don't you Pain?"_

Yahiko knew what kind of turn the conversation had taken, "So, then you do not wish to take our deal?"

Now was Naruto finally got to stick it to him. He'd already told the kings what he was gonna do and he called Sasuke to warn him as well. Although, with Sasuke, just about the only thing he could hear was his friend playing with the newly born Sadara, who was cooing in his arms. Once Kakashi and Rin had returned from their honeymoon, he'd warn them too. It was go time, "_Not only am I not taking your deal, i'm going to make you pay for everything you've done. Whoever said that hell have no fury like a woman scorned, obviously never dealt with me. You and your friends best prepare yourselves Pain, because we're coming, and we're not gonna stop until we send you to be judge the god you claim to love so much. Sleep well Pain, because I'm gonna sleep like a baby thinking about all the things we're gonna do to you and your buddies. Oh and one more thing, Fuck you!"_

The call abruptly ended, leaving Yahiko waiting on the other end. He placed the phone on the ground and then smashed it with his foot. He'd no longer need it. The time for talking had passed. It was time to go find Nagato and tell him to prepare for war.


	4. A Strange Emotion

Hey there everybody, and welcome to the next chapter and/or episode of Nine Crimes, Nine Kings: Judgement. I'm glad to see that you all didn't seem to upset by me saying that I didn't have time to post every week like I was before. It's just too dang time consuming to do that, especially with the longer chapters I tend to write. Oh well, I'll do my best to at least complete the fanfic if nothing else. Not sure how much longer it's gonna be, I'm just kind of gonna let it go at it's own pace. I feel it comes out better that way. This chapter will be like a large flashback combined with a pretty good amount of action too. Hope you're all ready, cause here we go!

* * *

There was many things that one could do once they began a war. Stock up the old armory, get your men ready, maybe start to thin out the heard of the enemy, anything along those lines. Taking your pet fox to the vet, is like none of these. In fact, it's one of the last things that anyone would be likely to do when they just called out a group of religious nutjobs. Naruto Uzumaki was not just anyone though. He may have been the leader of a dangerous group of major criminals, but he was also a very caring pet owner, and it was time for Kurama's check up. Not to mention that this was a chance to see just how the Akatsuki might attack if they chose to, but that was just gravy.

Naruto was driving over to Kiba and Ino's right now, Kurama was sitting in the seat beside him, pawing at the glove box to try and get it open. Usually Naruto would tell him to quit it, but he was too focused on other things to really care. He was looking out the window from every single angle, just monitoring everything that he could in order to be sure no one was coming after him. His pistol was right beside him, just in case he saw someone in a cloak with red clouds.

As he got ready to pull into to Kiba's apartment, he still wasn't quite ready to become a full on vet for another few months, so he didn't have an actual office yet, it looked like Naruto had gotten lucky. Not a single suspicious person had appeared on his way there, at least not one that he'd seen. Naruto slowly parked the car, his hand never a more than a few inches from his gun. Once he felt that it was safe to do so, he got out of the car with Kurama under his arm. There was no time to chase after him if Kurama ran off, so Naruto was holding him tight, which wasn't easy, given how big he'd gotten.

Kiba had been watching this whole thing from his window, and found it rather amusing. He opened the door and called to Naruto, "There's not one here, we secured the perimeter an hour ago just like you asked. Well, your guy's secured it anyways. Just come inside, it's safer in here anyways."

Naruto knew that Kiba was right, but was still very careful as he walked up stairs and into his apartment. The moment that they were inside, Naruto put Kurama down so that he could lock the door. Ino couldn't help but feel that he was overreacting to this little cult thing, "Honestly Naruto, calm yourself down. You're perfectly safe."

Naruto put his pistol back in it's holster and checked out the window, just to be safe, "Let's agree to disagree on this one. Everyone knows that you cut off the head when you're trying to take down a body."

Ino still found it rather amusing and she'd found a fun way to make fun of him, "Hey Kurama, daddy's being pretty silly, huh? How about you come and play with Ino for awhile? She's the only sane one here."

Kurama scampered over into Ino's arms, Naruto rolling his eyes the entire time, "Very funny Ino. Would you just let your husband take a look at him so that I can be sure he's alright? Once he's good, I'll have to leave. Not trying to be rude here, but you know the situation."

Kiba knew the situation alright, which was exactly why he was gonna give Kurama the quickest check up that he could, "Don't worry, it's just a routine look over, shouldn't take more than 10 minutes."

Naruto kept peeking past the curtain, keeping an eye on things just in case. Suddenly, just as Kiba was about to take Kurama in his arms, Naruto called over, "Woah, woah, just hold up a second. Kiba, come take a look at this."

Kiba walked over and started to look over Naruto's shoulder, trying to see what had him nervous. The only thing that he could see out there is van, "What, the van? That's been out there for like an hour. The guy's double and triple checked it, there's no one in there but some guy doing cheap piercings. He's been there every day for the past year, it's nothing new."

"Did he have any clients in there with him?" Naruto asked, very shortly.

Kiba tried to think real hard, "Um, I think that there was one guy in there with him, but he was unarmed. There's no risk here, we would've called someone to chase him off if there was."

"Hair color?" Naruto asked, again in a very quick manor.

That was another wired question, but Kiba answered, "Um, orange, and it was pretty long. Apparently there was a shit ton of metal in his face already. Don't know what he needed more for."

Naruto knew better than that, "These guys really do their research. They knew most people wouldn't look twice at something like that. Too bad from them I'm not that stupid. Fill your hand with something that goes boom Kiba, we've got work to do."

Kiba was sure that Naruto was smarter than he was, but still didn't get where he was coming from on this one, "Dude, they had no weapons of any kind on them. The guy doing the piercings was too high to give a shit when we ripped his car all to hell. How could they be dangerous?"

Naruto had seen some of the shit they pulled off before. No matter how impossible it seemed, they always pulled it off. Maybe it was nothing, but Naruto wasn't gonna risk it. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and tossed it to Ino, "Call Fu, tell her what's going on. Your husband and I have something to take care of. Let's go Kiba, out the back door this time. I wanna stay out of sight."

Kiba trusted Naruto above all else, so he just decided to go with it. He ran to his room and grabbed his gun, but not before giving Naruto a little crap, "Gotta call the person who has your balls to see if you can use them, huh? I'd think that you two were married or something."

Naruto knew he was talking about Fu, "Not yet, but I think we will be someday soon. I'm just having Ino call her to make sure Fu won't kill me when we're done. Come on now, we have work to do."

The two of them exited the back door as Ino just kept petting Kurama. She knew that the two of them would be safe, they could handle one psycho easily enough. Now Naruto, he had somebody else on his mind. His mind was drifting to Fu, back to what all it had taken to get the two of them together. It had been crazy, but all worth it in the end. So damn worth it in the end.

_Flashback-Day 1_

_After Naruto and Fu had their first big night together, she'd been expecting many things the next morning. Maybe that he'd fun off to tell all his buddies he'd banged that crazy bitch, or that he'd try and take some pictures on his phone for proof. Rather, she woke up to smell of fresh cooked pancakes and coffee being brewed. Naruto was a complete gentlemen, he fed her well, swore he'd never tell anyone about any of it if he didn't want her to, pretty much everything she could ever want. She was shocked by his politeness and couldn't even think of anything to say. They just set up the time when they'd discuss their plan to make sure that all of the kings stayed safe if worst came to pass and called it a day. Not much else they could do._

_It would be over the course of five days, from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M., during which time they'd create a failsafe, assuring that no one king could ever fuck over the rest. Of course that would be a little more awkward now, with Fu and Naruto having slept together and all. The tension that would cause became very evident the first day that Fu came over._

_Naruto had been sitting at his table, sipping on a cup of coffee, when he first got the knock on the door. He set his cup down and walked over to the door, his mind racing as to what his opening line would be with Fu. You'd think seeing each other naked would've relieved the tension, but Naruto was still just as nervous around her as ever. He was terrified that she'd bite his head off the moment she saw him._

_Naruto put his hand on the doorknob and slowly let the door creak open. Once he was able to see Fu, he decided to try a smile to keep her calm, "Glad to see that you made it Fu. Please, come on inside."_

_Fu looked him over nervously, still unsure of what to expect, and walked inside, "Um, thank you. Your place is...humble."_

_Naruto could tell that the last word was something she'd chosen carefully. He didn't have much on his walls that gave the place much identity, "I'll admit, it's rather plain. I've never been to hang pictures. Never had much reason to. It's not like I can hang a picture of the kings in here or something."_

_Fu knew that he was right about that last part, "So, you don't have any family at all then?"_

_"Nope, nobody. I guess I kind of have Kakashi, but again, I can't really hang any pictures for that," Naruto told her, rather bluntly. He never felt any need to hide it._

_Fu nodded, but didn't say anything else. There was silence for a few seconds, neither of them was sure what to say. Finally, after almost a minute of no talking, Naruto asked, "You wanna get a cup of coffee and then we can go over our ideas together?"_

_Fu felt like she could use a cup of coffee right now. She admit, Naruto made damn good coffee too, "Alright, as long as you're pouring that gourmet shit again. Man that stuff was good."_

_Naruto grabbed a cup from the kitchen and started to pour, "Cream and sugar, right?"_

_Fu nodded as fixed her the cup and handed it off to her. She took a sip and sighed happily, "Oh, that's good shit. Okay, now we can get started."_

_Naruto shuffled some papers around the table and sat down, "Okay, so we're gonna do this right? We're gonna be nice and civilized so that we can get this shit done."_

_"Right," Fu affirmed, "We'll be respectful so we can get this whole thing taken care of."_

_Naruto was very glad to hear it. He found the right paper and handed it to her, "So I was thinking that we'd start off with the law enforcement angle of the issue."_

_Fu rolled her eyes, "Oh dear lord, we're doomed."_

_Naruto let loose a deep sigh and took a sip of his coffee. Just like he suspected, it was going to be a long five days._

_Flashback end_

Kiba and Naruto watched the van like hawks from behind the corner of his building, uncertain of how proceed. They knew that they had to see whoever was inside that van, if only to make certain that it really was an Akatsuki member in there. Naruto wasn't the kind of person to just kill an innocent man after all. However, he knew that he'd be able to recognize an Akatsuki member on sight, after having researched them so much. The way that they got pierced, it was very particular. As random and disturbing as it may have looked, there was a very clear pattern to it. All of metal flowed around their bodies in a very strange rhythm. Naruto memorized it so that he could kill them on sight, and that's just what he intended to do.

Naruto leaned over to Kiba, "Call one of the guys tell them to knock on the door. Once they get a good look at the guy, have them tell you exactly what the piercings look like. Leave the rest of it to me."

Kiba shrugged and started dial, but not before asking, "So when to do Kakashi and Rin get back? It'll be a lot easier once they're here."

"Tomorrow," Naruto told him with a little joy, "That's when the love birds should be back. God bless em, I hope that they had fun."

Naruto really had hoped they enjoyed it. Those two really loved each other, and that was something special. He knew that better than most.

_Flashback-Day 2_

_Despite a rocky start on day one, Naruto and Fu managed to get past their differences and get a gameplan all started up. Apparently Fu still had issues with Naruto's leadership style, but they always talked it through in the end. They might have almost strangled each other a couple of times, but what were you gonna do?_

_There was one other thing that both of them had noticed on the first day, although neither of them wanted to talk about it. As the two of them argued with one another, they quickly noticed that the sexual tension was still there. If they were being honest, both of them was ready to jump the others bones in a second. However, Fu was too stubborn to admit that she was that attracted to Naruto and Naruto refused to take things further until Fu treated him with a little respect. So, that's the way is was for the two of them, at least for now._

_Naruto was sitting as his table once again, looking over the proposals that Fu had given him for the design of their failsafe. They didn't look bad, although he'd changed a few a things. She'd designed it so that the kings basically told one another as little as possible, and what information they did give out would be impossible to prove. Then she added in some nice plans that would make it easy to kill any traitor kings before they gave out any info that was too problematic. Not too many flaws in the plan really._

_"This all looks really good Fu," Naruto told her honestly, "I have a couple of suggestions make, but it's a great start."_

_Fu was over looking at Naruto's CD collection, but still heard him, "I didn't see many issues with it, but I'm all ears. Is all you have old rock and this old country crap? It looks you don't have anything less than five years old here."_

_Naruto didn't see what his taste in music had to do with anything, "I guess that's right. That's just the kind of music that I like to listen to. Can we get back to work?"_

_"Sure, I just kinda wanted to listen to some music or something," Fu said, looking over the cases. She found one labeled 'The Beautiful Door', "What about this one? Is it any good?"_

_Naruto looked up and nodded, "Yeah, it's good. Kind of a country and rock mix. 'Hearts Like Mine' is a great tune."_

_Fu found the CD player and put it inside, letting the song start to play. She had to admit, it had a nice, slow beat to it, "Huh not bad. I could listen to this for a while."_

_Fu sat back down and Naruto couldn't help but note something, "You know, I wouldn't complain if you just brought your own music."_

_Fu was okay with what they were listening to now, "Actually, this isn't half bad. I think that I can work with it anyways."_

_Naruto had feeling she'd like the song if she just listened to if for a second, "It's good music. So anyways, I only had one really issue with your plan, and that's that it takes all trust out of the equation. I was hoping that we could set something up that would at least prove to the kings that we can all still trust each other."_

_Fu started to rub her eyes in frustration, "Oh lord Naruto, it's like I'm working with a five year old sometimes."_

_Naruto had to stop himself from slamming his head into the table. Oh well, at least they'd made some progress this time."_

_Flashback end_

Naruto was listening carefully to every word that Kiba said. He was describing in great detail how there man had described the person inside the truck. His goal was to visualize this person as best he could, and the more he listened, the more Naruto was sure that he was right. Just the way this guy was describing the piercings, they weren't random, they very precise.

Before Kiba could even finish repeating what he'd been told, Naruto cut him off, "It's them. He's one of the guys that we're looking for."

Kiba jumped at how quickly he figured it out, "Oh, well alright then. So now what?"

Naruto took out his pistol and made sure that it was loaded properly, then put it back in it's holster, "Now we go and turn that motherfucker into swiss cheese. Unless you have some kind of problem with that of course."

Kiba took out his gun as did the same, "No, not at all. I've been itching to get some shooting in. Been ages since you needed me."

Naruto started to peek past the corner very carefully, starting to decide how he'd play this. He'd have to be very careful not to tip these guys off. Who knows what the Akatsuki one would do if he saw him coming. It had been a long time since he'd been this nervous.

_Flashback-Day 3_

_Once day three rolled around, Naruto had expect he'd begin to hate Fu coming over. Yet, he still found himself looking forward to seeing her day after day. It was very strange, considering that she bitched him out almost every time they saw one another. He was just drawn to her in some kind of strange way. There was a big part of him that wondered if Fu felt the same way. While he knew that there was only one way he'd find out, he was far too nervous to actually say anything. There was a very big chance that she'd laugh in his face and tell him to go fuck off. That wasn't a risk that he was willing to take._

_This line of thinking was interrupted when he realized that it was 9:55, just five minutes before Fu was supposed to be at his place. He walked over and unlocked the door just as he heard someone knock on it. Talk about nice timing. Naruto opened the door and Fu was waiting there for him with a book in her hand, "Hey shithead, I brought some stuff that should give us an idea of how to execute all the plans we set up yesterday. We're really making progress on this thing, I think we might not even need the fifth day to do it."_

_Naruto just kind of shrugged, not sure how to feel about that, "I guess so. Come on inside, I've got the coffee already brewing. You want me to put some music on, or what? Nice touch with the shithead remark by the way."_

_Fu walked on, a little surprised at how calm he was acting, "Um, thanks. I'm good with no music for now. You okay? You seem a little out of it at the moment."_

_Naruto figured he needed to act like everything was cool, "I'm tired and you're bitchy, if we start to try and figure out why we'll be here for years. How about we just get to work, huh?"_

_Fu stopped for a second, watching him pour her another cup of his delicious coffee. Something in the way he moved proved it, Naruto was acting different. This was more than just being tired, something was up, "Bullshit Naruto, something's up. Tell me what's on your mind, because we won't be able to get any work done until you can focus."_

_Naruto was getting a little stressed this point, and he almost reached for his cigarettes to calm himself down. He quickly remember that Fu was around, so he just took a sip of his coffee instead. Not nearly as good, but it'd have to do, "It doesn't concern you and I can focus just fine. Can we please just get to work? I really did have hard time sleeping last night."_

_Fu leaned over the counter and shook her head, "Pft, the one who always tells us to trust everyone wants to hide something from me, that's rich. Come on Naruto, what had you up all night?"_

_Naruto licked his lips, looking over the beautiful Fu. He hated trying to control himself in a situation like this, "You really wanna know?_

_Fu noticed a shift in the way he was acting, which made her want to know even more, "I'll admit, you've got my curiosity peaked. There aren't many motherfuckers out there that can do that to me."_

_There was a moment of silence, then Naruto started to smile, "I was thinking about you, and about that night."_

_Fu blushed, much to her own shock, "Oh really? I must have rocked your world more than I thought."_

_"I guess that you could say that," Naruto said, his smile growing, "I loved your soft skin, your sweet lips, and your beautiful breasts. I think that I loved the way that moved most of all though. It all made for an amazing night."_

_Fu was starting to get just a little uncomfortable, "Well, I'd be lying if I said that I disagreed. I thought that we weren't gonna talk about it though."_

_Naruto knew he was in it all the way now, "Come on Fu, don't tell me that you haven't been thinking about this as much as I have. That night, to be blunt, just might have been the best sex I ever head. Something tells me you feel the same."_

_Fu was turning the color of a tomato, "Look...I...I just….okay, yeah, the sex was fucking amazing, but what's your point? We're always at each other's fucking throats."_

_"Maybe that's just cause we're trying so hard to fight it," Naruto suggested, "We're damn stubborn people, makes it hard for us to admit when we care about someone, right? Maybe we just need to stop fighting it?"_

_Fu really wasn't sure about this, but she'd been thinking a lot of the same things before she came here, "Um...you could be right...but I just don't know. We should get back to work, but I promise we can talk about it on the last day, okay? I just need some time think."_

_It was actually a much better reaction than Naruto had been expecting, "Of course, take all the time ya need. All I ask is that you stop calling me shithead until you've made up your mind."_

_Fu actually laughed at that, "Okay, I guess I can work with that."_

_That was the first time they'd ever really sat down and laughed with one another. It was nice, and Naruto hoped it could happen again. Dammit, he was falling for this girl. He didn't know why, but he was falling very hard too._

_Flashback End_

As Kiba started to walk towards the van that held the Akatsuki member with Naruto, he couldn't help but wonder what the blonde's plan was. They were about walk up to someone who just might be one of the most dangerous men in Konoha. It just seemed like there could be a better way to confront him.

Naruto must have been able to sense how nervous he was, because he leaned over to Kiba and said, "He didn't see us coming until a few seconds ago, so right now he's most likely scrambling trying to figure out what the hell is going on. This means that rather than just trying to kill us, he'll first make sure that this isn't some kind of trap. Of course when we fling the door open and start pointing our guns he'll have some kind of reaction. The key is to play whatever reaction we get as best we can. Just stay calm, and go with whatever I do."

Kiba looked over at Naruto and took a deep breath, holding his pistol tight. It really did give him a rush to do things like this. Who knew how this was gonna play out.

_Flashback-Day 4_

_Naruto had no idea how this was going to play out. Fu said that she was going to decide what to do about her and Naruto on the last day, but today was day four. That meant there was one day before the decision had to be made, and Naruto and Fu had to spend that entire day together, acting like nothing was wrong. It was very clear to Naruto, that was going to be easier said than done._

_They were sitting together at the table right now, getting the last little pieces of the king's protection plan together. It was very close to completion and they'd more than likely have it done before it was time to leave. The next day, they'd take one last look at it and make sure that it was ready to be shown to the other kings._

_As Naruto looked over his work, his mind swimming with everything that had gone down the past down days, he couldn't help but notice that Fu had stopped doing her research and seemed to be thinking about something. He put down his papers and asked, "You all good Fu? Just trying to think of stuff or what?"_

_Fu tapped her hand on the desk, "Hm, oh, I was just thinking that you've been surprisingly helpful during this whole thing, that's all. I really thought that I would've bitch slapped like five times by now."_

_Naruto was a tiny bit offended, but took it as a compliment, "Thanks, I think. This was my idea to begin with."_

_"Hm, true," Fu mumbled, "You know what? You deserve a gift."_

_Naruto gave her a funny look, "A gift?"_

_Fu slowly started to nod, liking the idea, "Yeah, a gift. This place look kind of lonely, and you need a pet. So, what do you want? I can get pretty much anything that you'd like, so no pet is too crazy."_

_Naruto almost said no right away, but then he remember something, "Well, actually, there is one animal that I always wanted to get as a pet."_

_Fu loved to talk about animals, "Great, what is it?"_

_"Might seemed kinda weird," Naruto started, "But I really want to own a fox."_

_Fu looked off into space as she started to say, "Oh yeah, foxes are real cute. They're really hard to train though, I don't think that you could do it on your own. I'd have to hire someone to make sure he was good to go. Hm…"_

_Naruto was starting to feel like a bother, "If it's too much trouble, then don't do it. I don't wanna be a pain in the ass or anything."_

_Fu was still thinking about it, "I'm not sure. I'll see what can I do, I might be able to get one sooner or later."_

_Naruto flashed his foxy grin at her, which Fu found surprisingly cute, "Well, if you can, that'd be great. Now, how about we get back to work, huh? We can talk about foxes later. I'm gonna put on some music. Anything in particular that you want?"_

_"Yeah, put on some more stuff by that guy who sang Hearts Like Mine," Fu said as he walked towards that CD case, "He's actually pretty good."_

(Bonus points if anyone can name the guy I've been talking who sings the song mentioned in this chapter. Oh, and be warned, some of his song titles are similar to other titles, so simply searching the name of the song won't work. Might wanna try the lyrics or something like that.)

_Naruto fumbled through some CD's and found the one he wanted. He put in the radio and found the right song, "Yeah, he's pretty good. Some of his songs are weird though. I guess he's actually an actor too, and a pretty famous one at that. Here, this song's good."_

_Fu took in his words as the song started to play, and this one had a slightly jumpier beat than the one before. "Sounds pretty good," She said as the course began._

_Waterfalls, Jacquzzies, workout_

_Rooms and uzies_

_But massive pocket doors_

_And expensive wooden floors_

_Don't make a house a home_

_It's just another loan_

_So I cry_

_Behind the gray walls_

_It was had a pleasant, fast pace, which made working a little better. Naruto and Fu were really starting to enjoy each other's company. This might make the decision Fu had to make tomorrow easier._

_Flashback-end_

Naruto and Kiba were only a few steps from the van, making them only a few steps away from having to take someone's life. They wanted to avoid killing the man who was doing the piercings if at all possible. He had no stake it, done nothing wrong to Naruto or the other kings, so there was no reason for him to die. There was thing that Naruto refused to do whenever possible, and that was kill an innocent man.

As Naruto started to pull his gun out of his holster, he felt Kiba's hand grab his arm. He looked over to Kiba, who seemed to be sniffing something. Naruto rolled his eyes, "Kiba, just because you deal with dogs all the time, doesn't mean you can sniff as well they can."

Kiba wasn't backing down, "I don't need the nose of a dog notice certain smells. Back when I first start working with you, I spent about month guarding that explosives guy for a friend of yours. What was his name?"

"Deidara," Naruto said shortly, "Now what about him?"

Kiba got back to his point, "I was around him so much, there's certain things I can smell in an instant now, and the explosive that's on the bottom of that car is one of them."

Naruto trusted his people, it was one of the things that he prided himself on, so he decided to see if Kiba was right. He turned to Kiba and said, "Call me."

Kiba wasn't comprehending what Naruto wanted him to do, "I don't feel about you that way buddy, but thanks."

"Not like that you idiot," Naruto said, fighting not to chuckle, "Seriously, call me right now, with your phone. If it's a remote detonator, like I'll bet you it is, the call will make it explode. It's an old trick I know, something about the frequencies it sets off."

Now Kiba got it, and he'd actually heard of the trick too. He got out his phone and very quickly dialed Naruto's number. They both turned around, avoiding the looking the bus that might explode. There was one ring...then a second...and then a third...and then, BOOM!

Naruto felt the ground shake beneath him as the explosion we off, nearly knocking him from his feet. They were just far enough away from the blast that so it wouldn't do too much damage to them, but were just close enough to actually set it off. Both Kiba and Naruto's ears were ringing. However, they did see something. A small bit of orange hair disappearing down an alleyway.

Naruto and Kiba didn't need to even think about it. They both ran towards the alley at top speed, even if they couldn't hear a damn thing at the same moment. When they got to sight of him, they got one hell of shock. This Pain person was literally ripping his piercings out, or at least three of them that were on his arm. There was some kind of cut in his skin that they were binding together. It looked like he was trying to pull something out of it, which Naruto wasn't about to let him do. Both he and Kiba raised up their weapons and fired, nearly emptying their clips on the guy. It was a good thing they had silencers too, our they might have drawn attention to themselves. Before long he was on the ground, bleeding out from just about every hole in his body.

Kiba walked over and started to kick him, "Well there you go, he's good and dead. That's one of dead at least. Now what?"

Naruto walked over and looked over him, noticing a few key details, "It looks like there's more than one hole in this guy. I'm gonna guess that he got that explosive from somewhere else in his body. I was wondering where these guys stored all of the shit they seem to get from nowhere. Now I know, it's stored right in their motherfucking bodies. Talk about messed up. Now lets see if I can find a phone, oh, wait, here it is."

Naruto pulled a cell phone from the path's clothing, setting off an idea in Kiba's head, "Ah, I get it, you're gonna call that motherfucker's boss and tell him what happened. Cold blooded Naruto, but I like it. You have yourself some fun with that."

Naruto smiled as he began to search the phone, "Don't worry, I will. You head back to the apartment and check up on Kurama for me. If you'll excuse, I've got a phone call to make."

It wasn't long before Naruto found the number that he'd been looking for. It was the only number on the phone not mark with 'Pain' next to it. In fact, it was simply labeled, 'Those above me'. An odd name for someone in your phone. Still, Naruto called it nonetheless. The call would not be a long one, it would just be long enough for Naruto to make his point. All Naruto needed to prove was one thing: Round one went to the Kings.

_Flashback-Day 5-The Last Day_

_At last, after what had felt like ages to Naruto, the last of the five days were here. Today all they had to do was make a few quick revisions, and then it was decision time. Naruto, for what may have been the first time in his life, completely put his heart out on the line. Just the very idea of that sickened him. It sounded like something out of one of those horrible romantic comedies that Hollywood shells out year after year. However, Fu mattered to him, and he wasn't about to let that go because he felt iffy about something._

_Naruto was standing right by the door, waiting for Fu with fear in his eyes. He knew what her answer would likely be, or at least he felt like it she was going to come in her and tell him to fuck off. If that was indeed the case, then Naruto would just have to live with it. In the end, it wouldn't really matter. He would be heartbroken, but it would have no effect on the way he ran his business._

_Fu knocked at door, sending Naruto's heart racing. He pretty threw the door open, eager to get this thing started. The sooner they got through all of the bullshit, the sooner they could get to the shit that Naruto cared about, "Hey there Fu, nice to see you again. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Food? Maybe some music?"_

_Fu could see that he was about ready to burst, so she got right to it, "Naruto, I made the necessary revisions we talked about last night. I decided that I wanted to give you my answer right away. There's some things I was hoping to do today."_

_Naruto felt like he'd just gotten a bullet to the heart. That made him feel like Fu had already made up her mind, "So that's a no then?"_

_Fu went over and put all of the various papers she had with her on the counter, "Now, I never said that. You jumped to a real big conclusion."_

_Naruto felt a glimmer of hope there, but didn't let himself get too excited, "Well, I think that you were sending me a pretty clear message there. You had things to do today. That seemed like a big, fat no."_

_Fu walked over and stood right up next to Naruto, just inches from his face. She put her arms around him, "Looks can be deceiving."_

_"Wait, what? I mean…," Naruto started to stutter. After a second, and a giggle from Fu, he got back control of himself, "Are you saying yes, or are you just fucking with me?"_

_Fu licked her lips and leaned in close, "What do you think?"_

_Their lips met in another electric kiss, one that nearly had both of their knees shaking. Their lips broke apart, Naruto panting for breath, "Oh man, now that's the shit I'm talking about."_

_Fu was glad to see that he was happy, which felt odd to her, but she didn't dislike it, "You were right, if it wasn't for the fact that were in charge, I would've started dating you ages ago. Once I admitted that to myself, I only had option. Now, it's not gonna be easy for us to get over some of the issues we had in the past, but I think this is worth giving a try. Don't you?"_

_Naruto pulled her in a little closer, "Of course, I was the one who instigate it."_

_"Good point," Fu said, looking into Naruto's eyes, a little lost inside of them, "Now, like I said, I have things to do. Actually, we've got things to do. Things to do in your bedroom, in the living room, maybe on your kitchen if you wanna go that route."_

_Now, that had Naruto's attention, "Why you little minx, you were playing me earlier."_

_Fu started to walk towards the bedroom, "Yup, and I be willing to bet you loved it. Now, come in here, and I'll show you something else that you're gonna love."_

_Naruto chased her right into the bedroom. That was when the honest to goodness relationship started. Naruto and Fu had been dating ever since that day. There'd been a couple of bumps down the road, but they'd made it far. Those two cared about each other more than the world itself. Love was a complex thing that was hard to find. They'd been lucky in that area._

_Flashback-End_

Even as the heavy sleeper that he was, Jiraiya couldn't ignore the bashing that was coming from his front door late at night. He'd been in bed for an hour, so he was already very tired. It made him irritable, but he would at least try to be polite to this guy.

As he walked down to the front door, he started hearing someone screaming, a woman's voice, "Jiraiya, get out here you prevy bastard, I need to talk to you!"

Jiraiya would know that voice anywhere. He knew exactly who was gonna be on the other side when he opened the door, "Tsunade, what the hell are you doing here? Oh god, are you drunk."

Tsunade was staggering a little bit and smelled a little off, "I'm drunk alright. Now get inside, we need to talk."

Jiraiya let her in, walking slowly to the living room and sitting down on the couch. She looked at Jiraiya, who'd followed her in, and said, "Now Jiraiya, I'm gonna tell you something, but I don't want you to think that I'm only doing it because I'm drunk. I've want to do this for a long time, it's just very scary for me, and I needed little courage to be say it the first time. I'll say it any way that you want me to later, I promise, but I need to be drunk the first time."

Jiraiya sat down next to her and put her arm around her, "Come on Tsunade, you can tell me. What is it?"

Tsunade leaned into his shoulder a let out a barely audible whisper. It was just three word, but they were three words that meant the word to Jiraiya, "I love you…"

Jiraiya's eyes shot right down to her, but she was already asleep. He didn't care though, she'd said it, and promised she'd be willing to say it again. That was all that Jiraiya had ever needed to hear. The two of them slept side by side on that couch, a deep, peaceful sleep. When morning came, Tsunade awoke him with same three beautiful words that he'd fallen asleep to.


	5. Playtime

Well hey there ladies and gents, I'm back. It's time for me to once again give you a chapter and/or episode of Nine Crimes, Nine Kings: Judgement. I really gotta say, it was great getting some more follows and favorites for my last chapter, made me a little bit more eager to write this next installment. Little short on reviews, but that's okay. Sorry if that sounds bad, I'll do my best not to let my ego get the better of me in that case. Now, this chapter will largely be about Akatsuki making a counter strike against the nine kings. Last, but certainly not least, Naruto will finally meet Sasuke's little girl. Also, it's good to be back on Sundays. Thanks to the weather forcing me to cancel a few things, I had a little time to catch up. I guess you could say that it worked out well. Enough talk, let's get this thing going.

* * *

The Akatsuki's small base was a place of mourning right now. They'd lost one of their paths, a precious brother to them, to the bullets of the enemy. The first thing they'd wanted to do was go out and get revenge on Naruto, but that would have to wait. First, they needed to give their brother a proper end. Something simple would do. A nice cremation, something respectful enough to send out a member of the Akatsuki.

His ashes sat on the center of a table inside of an urn now, the Akatsuki sat all around the table watching it. They all felt a slight hole inside of them at the loss of their friend. He would not die in vain, that much they could assure him. Nagato picked up the urn full of ashes and set them down on the mantle. The rage was clear in his eyes, "My friends, this is a grievance that we can not allow to go unaccounted for. One of our brothers has been murdered in cold blood. While I always do my best to keep emotions in check, on this is an occasion I don't believe that will be possible."

Konan walked over and put a calming hand on his shoulder, "We're behind you all the way. No one does that to one of our own. So, what do you need us to do?"

Nagato wasn't sure yet, "I've got a few ideas going, but nothing set in stone yet. This is the first time one of our brothers went down so early in one of our judgments. I fear that there are more to come. If there's any of you that wish to back out now, I wouldn't judge you. It's not as though I'd force you dive into a situation that's this dangerous. Even you guys should have choice."

None of them were about to back down, at least not at a time like this. Nagato was going to need their help to make sure those kings were dethroned. The bald Pain stood up, starting to speak for all of them, "Sir, with all due respect, you'd be a fool to think that we'd wanna leave you at all. You're a great leader, one that we could never just abandon. Just as Lady Konan said, you have our complete support."

Nagato looked at all of them and smiled in pride. Truly, he was in the best of company. He beamed at his students, "Those are the words I was hoping so desperately to hear. Now, let's get to work."

* * *

Kakashi and Rin had an exhilarating time on their honeymoon, it went even better than they could have imagined really. The sunshine was warming and bright, the water was cool and refreshing, and their time in the bedroom, well...that was for Kakashi and Rin to know about, but judging from the sounds coming from their rooms, it hadn't been the least bit unenjoyable.

Now, the two of them were on their way home after the lovely trip. As much as they hated to leave the island paradise they'd been staying at, Naruto was in trouble, and that was something that they would never ignore. Besides, Rin needed to be home in order to get everything ready with her baby.

Kakashi was looking over at Rin as he drove the car, he could see the motherly glow coming off from her. Just that little glance brought a gleam to his eye, "Rin, if looked anymore beautiful, I'd pull this car over right now and kiss you."

Rin rolled her eyes at the cheesy line, "Kakashi, that's one of the worst lines I've ever heard, but I'll say thank you anyways."

Kakashi chuckle, knowing that she was right, "Oh good, for a second there I thought the honeymoon had ended already."

"It'll be over shortly," Rin said, as she started to stretch her arms a little bit, "Or at least once the baby comes anyways. We'll be driving each other crazy then. Babies can be very stressful."

Kakashi already knew that, but had a little more faith, "And here I thought that babies were supposed to bring a family closer together."

Rin leaned over and put her hand in his, "Oh, they do. Didn't you know? Love is wanting to strangle someone, but not being willing to because you'd miss them too much."

"Huh, I guess that's why we work so well together," Kakashi mused, "I drive you crazy with my nonsense, you drive me crazy with your health stuff, but we're still great in bed together."

Rin threw her head back laughing, "Not exactly what I meant, but I'll take it. So, what are we gonna do once we get closer to home? Are you gonna go right home and unpack, or head over to Naruto's and talk with him? Actually, I was a little hungry, so we could get something to eat too if you'd like."

Kakashi mulled over his choices in his head. As good as a nice meal sounded, they really needed to see Naruto and make sure that he was okay, "Nah, we've gotta make sure that this whole Akatsuki thing doesn't get out of hand. It shouldn't take too long, we just need Naruto to give us an update is all. Then we can go and get ourselves a nice meal. How does that sound?"

Rin could more than live with that, "Okay, I can wait a bit. Heck, I think that I'll even let you stop at your favorite donut shop on the way back."

Kakashi's eyes lit up like a little kid's, "Just when I thought that I couldn't love you anymore."

Rin started to lean in to give him a little kiss, when a stream of loud noises hit her ear. A bunch of car horns and some screeching. As Kakashi and turned to see what it was, a massive old van came into sight. It hit Kakashi and Rin's car right in the side, sending them spinning out of control. There was a small brick building beside the road they were, which is what ended up stopping their little skid. The airbags had gone off, which softened the blow for both of them.

Once they were stopped, Kakashi turned right to Rin in order to make sure that she was okay, "Rin! Oh god Rin, tell me that you're okay!"

Rin looked herself over and didn't seem to find any issues, "I think I'm okay, just a little a shaken up. What the hell happened?"

Kakashi looked around and saw that the van had pulled back. It looked like it was going to come in and try it for a second time. While he was a little shaken up, Kakashi could still more than shoot. He couldn't make out exactly who was in the car, but that didn't matter. They were dead as far as Kakashi was concerned.

He yanked his pistol out of it's holster, even on vacation he was always packing, and aimed for the driver. It was hard to see him, at least Kakashi thought it was a guy, with his vision being so blurry. Kakashi shot as straight as he could, yet many of his bullets still missed their mark. Their mystery assailant was only hit once in the shoulder, which was indicated by him grabbing it for dear life. As the shells filled the back of his car, Kakashi watched the driver back out and get out of there as soon as possible.

Rin was panting heavily, scared to death at the whole situation, "Was that them? These Akatsuki sons a bitches?"

Kakashi knew he was making assumptions here, but he felt pretty confident about this, "I can't think of anybody else that wants to kill us right now. At least I shot the bastard. Let's get to Naruto, make sure that he knows what's going on."

Rin pointed out the state of their car, "Um, do you not see how fucked up our vehicle is? How in the hell do you propose we get there?"

"I've got cash on my, I'll just call a cab," Kakashi stated determinedly, "We need to get this shit short out now. Unless, of course, you need to go to the hospital...Oh shit! The baby! Is the baby okay? Do we need to get you to somebody to check you out?"

Rin wanted to say no and go right to Naruto, but her maternal instincts were kicking in, "I...I don't know. I think it's fine, but I don't wanna take the risk. Do you have enough for two cabs?"

Kakashi shook his head, but not about that money, "I do, but you're not going alone. This is my baby too."

Rin was touched by how much he cared, but knew that he had other obligations, "Kakashi, I'm sure that it's fine. Naruto needs to give you all of the info."

Kakashi was never the sort of person to back down, and now was no exception, "Naruto can call me then. We've both got cellphones. I'm coming with you Rin, whether you want me too or not."

Rin put her arms around Kakashi and cuddled up to him, overcome with emotion, "Of course I want you there Kakashi. You and this baby are the most important things in the world to me."

Kakashi took out his phone and looked up a cab service, "Good, because the same goes for me. I'll call Naruto on the way there. Hopefully he's not too pissed, I feel we just made things a bit more complicated."

* * *

The kings favorite restaurant was buzzing right now, Choji was running ragged trying to keep up with all of the kings demand. Less than a couple of hours ago, Naruto had come into his restaurant and offered him a huge deal. He told Choji that he was willing to offer him $5,000 a day if he'd let the kings use his restaurant as their base of operation for a while. That much money, plus they'd pay for any food that they asked him to make. There was zero chance that he'd ever turn down that much money. They got a yes faster than they knew what to do with it.

Naruto wanted a special base where he could keep track a scoreboard as to what was happening with The Kings vs The Akatsuki. He wanted somewhere that all of the kings could stay at comfortably, and everyone loved this restaurant. Every king had as many guards as they could spare surrounding the building. If the Akatsuki came anywhere near it, they wouldn't get far. These guys were trained professionals, one sniper or a blitzkrieg wouldn't be enough to take them out.

Inside the building, Naruto was getting his little 'Scoreboard' set up. It was a just a board on the wall that had was marked with moves each side had made. Naruto found it good to keep things in order, to make sure that he could visualize them. He was adjusting the board right now, as spoke on the phone with Kakashi. His old friend had him quite worried at the moment, with what all had happened to him and Rin.

"You're sure you're alright then?" Naruto asked, his voice lined with concern. There was way too many of his people getting hurt with all this.

Kakashi seemed calmer than Naruto was, although that was mostly acting in order to keep Naruto from thinking that he and Rin needed help, "_We're all good here, at least for now. I'm sure that there's nothing wrong with Rin or the baby, but it still isn't a risk that we're willing to take. Sorry, we just want to be careful. You can fill me from the phone if you'd like."_

Naruto couldn't even believe that Kakashi felt the need to defend himself here, "This is your family we're talking about Kakashi. You take all of the time that you need. As for filling you in, that can wait. It's not like we're going to need right at this moment."

Kakashi really felt like he had one of the best bosses in the world, at least when came to less legal of his two jobs, "_Thanks a million Naruto, I promise that we'll be back as soon as we can. The moment we know that baby's safe, we'll be back there and handling every last thing that we can for you."_

"I know that you will Kakashi, but focus on yourself and your wife for now. Good luck buddy, call me once you have word about the baby. Bye, I'll talk to you later," Naruto said, right before he hung up.

He heard someone come up behind him, and saw that it was Choji. There was a small container in his hand, "Hey, the ramen that you sent for is here. You want me to put it on the table?"

Naruto let the delicious smell hit his nose, glad to see that his favorite food was here, "That would be great, thanks. I'd just like to go on record and say that I think you're the best chef in all of Konoha, but your ramen leaves a bit to be desired. At least, when compared to Teuchi's anyways."

Choji knew better than to offended that easily, "Hell, I know that. Teuchi whips my ass when it comes to ramen. I've seen you gobble up my barbecue though, and I know you love my other soups. I'm not worried Is there anything else that I can get you?"

Naruto almost asked him for something to drink, but choose not to, "I'd say a class of scotch, but I've got a drive to make first. It won't take long, there's just one person that I've gotta see. If anyone asks where I'm at, tell them I went to see an old friend to tell him to stay the hell out of this one."

Choji watched him put on his coat, wanting to know more, but afraid to ask. Knowing the truth about certain things made it harder to fake innocence. He went with the most vague route that he could manage, "Does this have anything to do with the call you just made?"

"Sort of," Naruto said as he walked towards the door, "Let's just say that an issue came up that made me realize this war was basically started, and there was one thing that I still really needed to do. Well, maybe less need and more want to do."

Choji picked up his ramen and held it out to him, "Well don't leave without this. Wouldn't want to let it get cold or anything."

Naruto looked at the food and heard his stomach growl. It really was better fresh, "You know what? Hand me a couple forks. I can wait like five more minutes."

* * *

Bringing new life into the world is something that few people are foolish enough to take lightly. This was why Sakura had done everything she could to make sure that little Sadara had every last thing that she needed to be healthy the moment her and Sasuke brought her home. Sadara was breast fed, cuddled, kept warm, everything that a little one needed. As long as she was happy, Sasuke and Sakura were happy.

Sadara was plenty happy right now, as she was getting lunch from her mother. Sasuke watched from the other side of the room, a very pleasant glint in his eye, "Strange to think that just a month ago, sucking your nipples raw was my job."

Sakura shot a playful glare at him, blushing just a bit, "True, but now it's her's. I swear, she's gotten twice as big since we brought her home."

Sasuke had been feeling the same way, "I know. I just can't believe that she's really ours. Don't get me wrong, I always figured I'd have kids, but it's still weird as fuck."

Sakura held Sadara closer to her, "Sasuke, we've got little ears here. I don't want that to be her first word."

Sasuke walked over and set down next to them, gently stroking Sadara's head, "No, I'm sure that her first word will be mama. If I'm really lucky, maybe it'll be daddy."

They had a couple of pleasant moments before the doorbell rang. While Sasuke didn't have any visits planned, he wasn't surprised when it went off. When you have a baby, lots of people suddenly decide to pop in to see her. He gave his newborn a loving kiss on the head and then walked over to see who was at the door.

He opened the door and his face immediately broke into a grin, "Naruto, how the hell have you been man? I didn't figure you'd ever come down here with everything that's going on right now."

"Well, things aren't in full swing yet. I wanted to take the last chance I had to see your new bundle of joy. If you wouldn't mind anyways," Naruto said, giving his old buddy a big bro hug.

As if Sasuke could ever tell Naruto no, especially about something like this, "If you wanna see Sadara, then get the hell in here. I'm not going to pass up on a chance for her to meet her Uncle Naruto."

Naruto walked in the house at those words, more than a little embarrassed by them, "I don't know if I'm worthy of Uncle status, but I'll take it if you're offering."

Sasuke put an arm around him as they entered the living room. Naruto was family as far as he was concerned, and nothing could change that. Sadara was going to call him uncle if Sasuke had anything to say about it. Sakura glanced up at him and smiled, "Naruto, it's so good to see you. How've you been? It seems like ages since the last time that you visited."

Naruto sat down, not next to Sakura, but across from her, "This is probably the busiest I've been in a long time. I'm trying to make all the time I can for the fun stuff, but that's not as easy as it sounds. Still, sometimes I get lucky."

Sakura could see that Sadara was all full, so she carefully pulled her shirt back up and wiped her little girl's mouth. She looked down at her and then back at Naruto, "Oh I'm sorry, did you wanna hold her? I don't know how long you can stay, so hold you'd better hold her as much as you can now."

Naruto was glad that she'd asked, he was afraid that she wasn't going to ask, "Of course, hand her here. I need to get me some cuddle time."

Sakura giggled and got off the couch and straight over to Naruto. It was important to her that Sadara was only held by people she trusted, and she felt that she could trust Naruto. She put her baby carefully in his arms, "Here, now make sure that you keep her head elevated. Oh, and don't shake her too much, she just ate. Oh, and be sure that she's,"

Sasuke chuckled at how his wife was acting, "Naruto's held babies before sweetie, I'm sure that he can hold Sadara just fine. Let him do his thing, and she'll be okay."

Naruto knew that Sasuke trusted him, and he was glad to see it held true with his daughter as well. He spoke softly to the her, "Hey there tiny, oh look at you. Wow, you're hair's just as dark as your daddy. I wonder if you've got the same eyes to. Will open them for me, huh? Come on, open your little eyes."

Sadara started to coo as babies do, and then, as if to grant Naruto's request, slowly opened up her eyes. She looked at Naruto, who was beaming right back at her, "Well would you look at that? Yup, they're the same onyx color that Sasuke has. They suit you well."

Sakura found the situation was just too cute. She looked around until she found her camera, "Oh, Naruto, please let me take a picture. She barely ever opens her eyes with anybody but me or Sasuke. I need to get this one."

Naruto knew that the was supposed to avoid being photographed with people that he worked for, but he couldn't say no to Sakura for this one. He nodded, "Sure, but just one. You don't need to many of some ugly prick like me around."

Sakura rolled her eyes before she got her camera ready, "Very funny Naruto. Now sit still, I wanna get this before she closes her eyes."

Naruto did as she asked, letting her get the this little picture. It was nice, getting to see them again, even if he knew that it wouldn't last long. That was what made him remember that he needed to get down to brass tacks, "As fun as it is to see her, that's the not the reason that I came here. I wanted to make sure that Sasuke knew he needs to stay off the job for as he can as long as you guys need him here."

Sakura thought that they already knew that, "You've said that before Naruto, there was no need to come here and tell us in person."

Naruto looked at them, being as genuine as he could possibly be, "I'm not sure if you guys fully get what I mean though. Growing up, I never had a family, not even a for a little while. Not having one made me realize just how important they are. There's nothing more important to me than family. Sasuke, until I'm comfortable with you coming back, you'll stay right at home. Do you get me?"

Sasuke looked at his old friend, a whole new level of respect flowing through him. It was clear to him what Naruto was really trying to say, which was keep out of this fight, you have a kid to raise. It wasn't everyone in the criminal underworld willing to do that, "That means a lot Naruto. Thank you for giving me this."

Naruto smiled at the two of them, then looked at the clock on the wall. He spent far too long on this little trip, he needed to get back to the restaurant, "Thank you all for having me, but I need to get back to work. Please, enjoy your time with your daughter."

Naruto gave Sadara to Sakura, who was still touched by her previous words, and then headed for the door. He gave them one last wave and a small smile before he left. It really was good to see them again, but there was things that he needed to do. Unpleasant things, but necessary things nonetheless. Now that he knew Sasuke wouldn't try to get involved, he felt much safer about it to. Here went nothing.

* * *

Once Naruto returned back to the restaurant, a smile still on his face, he found that everyone was hard at work. Just about every king was looking over the board, debating about what the Akatsuki's next move would be. Naruto recognized just about every voice that was speaking, expect one seemed very out of place. If he was right about who it was, Naruto was gonna be very shocked. He slowly walked over to the group, pushing his way though. There was a few, 'heys' as he did so, but Naruto ignored them. He had to see if her was right first. That's when he saw it, a long head of white hair.

"No fucking way," Naruto started to say, "Jiraiya, is that you?"

Jiraiya turned around, looking at Naruto slyly, "In the flesh. What can I say? When you need me, I come running. Even if it is in the middle of bunch of crazed criminals."

Yugito felt that was a low blow, "A bunch of crazed criminals that your little buddy here happens to lead. Do you have some kind of problem with that?"

"Yes I do," Jiraiya said very bluntly, "But I care about Naruto too much to make a real issue out of it."

It stung Naruto a little to know that Jiraiya was still strongly against what he was doing, but opening that can of worms would do nothing but distract them, "Okay, that's enough of that. It's good to have you here Jiraiya, we could really use you. Who called you?"

Jiraiya pointed over at Naruto's lovely green haired girlfriend, "Fu did, she said that you always called me the best strategist you'd ever seen. Kind of hard to say no to that."

Naruto could see Fu giving him a wink from the corner of his eye. Sometimes that woman was just too good to him, "Have you had a chance to look everything over yet, and if so, what do you think their next move will be?"

Jiraiya went back to the board and put a thoughtful hand on his chin, "Well, I hadn't been expecting them to attack Kakashi and Rin so soon, but I also think that may have been the point. Just like they did with Yugito, they wanted to attack someone who meant something to you first. Someone that you'd been close with for a long time. Clearly, it didn't work as well as they'd hoped. They didn't quite get to make the point they'd been hoping for, so they'll be desperate now. If I had to guess, I'd say that they'll go after one of the kings next. Just so that they can really get their point across."

Rather than be afraid, that actually made Naruto a little more calm, "Well we won't have any issue then. I mean, all of the kings are here, under extreme watch. There's no way they'd make a play for one us right now."

Jiraiya would've liked to agree with Naruto on that, however, there was something that just didn't sit right with him, "You'd think, but the Akatsuki are smarter than they look. If they're one thing that they're known for, it's drawing people out into the open. We need to make sure that once you people go home, the Akatsuki won't try and pull anything, or that, if they do, they won't be successful. What do you all have when it comes to security?"

All of the nine kings started to name off their various guards and the number of people that they had. Jiraiya was a little impressed by the pure amounts of manpower that the kings were able to drum up. If men were all that they needed, they'd be as safe as the freaking president. Men, sadly, would not be enough, "Hm, could be helpful, but we need more. The Akatsuki are smart enough to trick even me. Very few of your guards would be able to spot something they're pulling. Going home and back just seems dangerous. I wish there was a better way."

There was a short moment of silence, then Gaara suddenly snapped his fingers, "A safe house! What we need is safe house. Somewhere that we can eat, sleep, and never leave. As long as the Akatsuki don't know where it is, we'll be perfectly fine."

"Now there's an idea," Jiraiya said before the a silence could set in, "Gaara, you're a hell of a bright man. I can't believe I overlooked it. A safe house solves every last one of our problems. We'll need to find a place that meets all of our qualifications, but once we do that, we'll gain a huge advantage!"

Han had just the place in mind, "You know, I've been thinking about getting a new place to store all of my black market art and what not. I've always been careful never to tell anyone where it's at for safety reasons. Since I'm moving it anyways, why don't we just have that be our safe house?"

If there was anything that Naruto wanted to hear, that was it. Han had just saved the day for him, "Han, you brilliant bastard, I could hug right now! How long would we need to have everything set up for it?"

Han went through some rough numbers in his head, "Three days should do it. Will that be quick enough?"

Naruto had to check with Choji, "What do you think? Can you give us three days?"

"Considering 5,000 is what you're paying me a day, it could be a fucking month and I wouldn't complain. Take all of the time that you need," Choji responded, giddy with the prospect of that much money in such a short amount of time.

While Jiraiya loved that they'd found such a simple solution, he kind of hated that it was gonna take three days to get it done, "There's a lot that the Akatsuki could do in three days. Which three people live the closest to here?"

Naruto, Bee, and Utakata all raised their hands. Each of them lived less than ten minutes away, "That would be us. Why do you ask?"

"I don't want any of you on the road for a long period of time, so the quicker your home, the better," Jiraiya explained, starting to figure out who should go where, "Fu and Gaara, you go home with Naruto, Yugito and Han, you go home with Bee, Yagura and Roshi, you go home with Utakata. I'm assuming that all of you are okay with letting your fellow kings stay at your home?"

It would be kind of bad if they weren't willing to let the others stay, so of course they quickly nodded. Utakata even decided to add in for effect, "Of course they can stay. In fact, I'll let them have a little fun with the girls, on the house. Oh, right, Yagura isn't really interested in women is he? Well, we'll see what we can do for him."

Yagura looked at Naruto, not angry, but curious, "Did you tell them?"

Naruto just shrugged, "Well yeah, we've been wondering about that for years. I just told them so that we could finally put the issue to rest."

Jiraiya felt like they were getting off topic, "He's gay and you're all fine with it, that's great. Now, I have to get going, so all of you promise me that you'll be sure to head home with your assigned king once you leave, okay?"

Being told what to do was something the kings weren't used to, but they trusted Jiraiya because Naruto did, "Fine, we'll stay with one of the kings, but don't think that means you can boss us around whenever you want."

Jiraiya had no interest in being their leader anyways. All he wanted to do was get Naruto though this, "Understood. Now, I'm going to get out of here since there's not much else for me to do at the moment. Once you guys get to the safe house, then call me."

Jiraiya grabbed his coat and headed out, still a little annoyed with the kings. He appreciated their faith in Naruto, but he could never bring himself to actually like them. Once he left the room, Naruto turned to the rest of the kings, "Now, before you all start to complain about him bossing you around, let's remember that we're lucky to have him. If anyone can out think the Akatsuki, it's him."

It seemed like every king except for one or two of them were grinding their teeth. Yugito was especially unhappy, "He could've been a little more polite you know? Oh, and Bee, your house better be up to my standards. If you don't have a living space that's good enough for me,"

Bee was actually hurt that Yugito had such little faith in him, "Hey Yugito, there's no need to be bitchin! I'll have you know that my place is trippin! Fool, ya fool!"

Yugito should've known better than to try and get a straight answer out of Bee. She addressed A instead, "How many bedrooms does he have?"

"Five, Bee will stay in the master, I'll stay next to him, you and Han can have the guest bedrooms," A said, to put her worries to rest.

The sleeping arrangements could wait as far as Naruto was concerned, "Look, we've got an a couple hours before we need to leave, so lets just focus on some other things for now. For instant, we're not going to have too many guards at the safe house so that we can avoid drawing attention to it, so let's decided who all we want there now. I think that three people per person should be the most we can take, so everyone write down the names of the three people that you most want there. This seems like it should go without saying, but I'll say it anyways. Only bring people that you can trust to this safe house. Also, have one of your people back you a bag and bring it to whoever you're staying at's house. Now, let's get to work."

Now, typically there'd be an argument from one of the king's here, whining about one thing or another. It was very hard to get nine so very different people to agree on just about everything, but this time they shut their mouths. They needed the Akatsuki beaten, and Naruto had never steered them wrong before. It seemed like it was becoming common place for them to shut up and listen right now. The ending of it would be a liberation like no other.

* * *

It didn't take long before everyone was at their assigned house, the longest drive was a mere 7 and a half minutes away. All of the kings were perfectly hospital to their friends, offering them whatever they could possibly want.

Naruto had been nervous about having Gaara stay with him when his apartment was so small, but it turned out that didn't matter. Gaara didn't actually sleep much, and Fu slept with Naruto in his bad. Everything worked out fine. Kurama was even a good nocturnal buddy for Gaara.

Yugito was shockingly happy with how nice Bee's house was, although Han didn't really care. He was the kind of guy who could sleep on concrete and not even give a crap. Han was just a simple guy, even if Yugito wasn't. She adored the massive bed and soft sheets that she got to sleep on that night.

Now Utakata may have tried the hardest out of all of them to be a good host. He had Mei set Roshi up with one of his best girls, and let Yagura find just about any book that he could possibly want to read in his library. Being a good host was something that Utakata prided himself on. He and Mei argued a bit when he offered her a drank and she refused, not trusting it. Other than that though, Utakata was doing very well.

Roshi had finished up with his girl after about an hour, and it had been a lovely hour. Whenever he got done with something like that, he always needed to smoke a joint. However, Utakata had a strict no drugs rule at his place, so Roshi decided to go outside to smoke it. He knew that he wasn't supposed to leave the house, but a few minutes out in the hall wouldn't matter, right?

Utakata was living in the same condo that he had been before, so security was tight. Roshi felt very safe as he enjoyed his pot leaning on hallway wall. It was some of the best stuff that Bee offered, so it really hit the spot. He took another puff, slowly letting the smoke leave his mouth. His high was setting in nicely, so it was likely that he'd soon go back inside to get sandwich or maybe some cereal. The cravings had begun to hit him.

He started to put out his joint when a new voice caught his attention, "Little risky to have pot in public, isn't it?"

Roshi turned to see a young lady with orange hair and piercings all over her. The first thing that he'd thought about doing was hitting on her, as he'd had some good experiences with heavily pierced girls in the past. Those thoughts left him quickly when he realized what her look must have meant, "Akatsuki? How the hell did you get in here? There's guards out front! Oh shit, it doesn't matter!

The woman smiled as she saw him reach for his gun as fast as he could. That would do him no good, as she already had a taser in her hand. She pointed it right at him and pulled the trigger, letting the little dart like projectiles shot out and hit Roshi in the chest. Electricity flowed through the devices as Roshi started to convulse and eventually pass out.

The woman leaned down next to his body, smiling darkly at him, "Oh Roshi, what fun we are going to have with you. I just wait to see how this goes!"

* * *

After swimming in darkness for an unknown amount of time, Roshi awoke to the sound of chains rattling. His whole body felt like he'd been beaten with a bag of rocks, but his arms were particularly sore. This was due to them being what the chains were binding. They were held tight, lifting his feet just off the ground. He could only just barely open his eyes, still feeling like crap. What he saw was seven people standing in front of them, one holding an ax in her hands. It was the same woman as before. The others had weapons of their own, but the woman looked the most eager.

She turned to to a man with red hair, "Oh please sir, let me start! I'm the one who brought him in, I should be the one who makes the first cut!"

The man loved her enthusiasm, "Go right ahead my Path. We'll all get our chance before we give him his judgement anyways."

The woman gave the same dark smile that she had before and turned to him. He wanted to scream to them to stop, but his mouth was gagged. All he could make was a muffled scream before she brought the ax back and then slammed it into his stomach. Roshi let out a loud grunt of pain right before she pulled it out. The woman let the crimson blood drip from the blade as she walked over to him and whispered into his ear, "There's no one coming Roshi. They might be looking for you, but there's no way that they'll find you in time. We're going to put you through hell here, and then send you to the hell that you belong in. Maybe we'll send a few pieces of you to your friends. That could be fun, huh? Sorry, I don't mean to hog you, I'll let my friends come in and get a crack at you. Don't want to be selfish, now do I?"

Roshi watched her back away and then saw the next person come up to her. This was not going to be a good way for him to go out, but something told him that it wasn't something he could control. Now, he was just along for the ride, no matter how painful it would be. Truly, his judgement had begun.


	6. Hiatus

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to say that this fanfic is officially on hiatus, possibly abandoned altogether. Two weeks in a row I've have gotten zero reviews, and now this week no favs or follows. Now before some of you try and claim that I'm letting my ego get the better of me, just let me say one thing; I can't keep going on a fanfic that I'm not getting any feedback on. Of course I want to finish this fanfic, but you have to understand, the main reason that I do this to improve as a writer. Fanfic writing is only a very small section of what I do, as I plan to be a write for a career. If this doesn't help me improve myself, I have to move on to a different fanfic that will. If none of my fanfics give me what I need, I'll have to shift my focus completely to my other writing. 7,000 words a week is a tall order, even doing that in two weeks is touch. That's time I could be writing my screenplays or books. Not to beat a dead horse, but it's time to do something that'll help me as a writer. Thank for reading, and I'm sorry.


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